Category: Daily Cryptic

… only scoring a RUN on the very last clue (24D). Some good stuff in here, including some “essence of Times xwd”. Solving time 6:42 Across 1 THROUGH=via,comPUTing 10 BAN,JAX=”jacks” – with JERKIN as the … Read more “23,578 – shades of the cricket…”

Solving time: 58′ Meticulously fair wordplay but some pretty obscure references that had me scurrying for reference books (e.g. LABAN) and I’m not sure about the Clare reference in 13D nor the wordplay for 22A. … Read more “Times 23577/Laban”

Solving time : 42mins, but not sure about a coupleI found this pretty straightforward – I did it on the train, so hoped I wouldn’t need to go to the dictionary. I am not sure … Read more “23,576 – heatstroke”

Solving time: 16-ish minutes, one missing (21dn) The less said about my effort on this, the better. 21dn was understandable, but I don’t know what I was playing at on 5ac, 10ac and 7dn. * … Read more “ST 4219 (Sun 8 Apr) – The Confetti Incident”

I really struggled with this puzzle. Some of the words included seem a little forced, although legitimate (UH-HUH and TERMLY for example) and there’s at least one clue I didn’t understand. ACROSS 1 CA(T(h)E)RS 4 … Read more “Times 23,574/Not my best effort…”

Solving time: 5m45s – Got held up badly at the end by 6d/7d/13ac which was feeble – guessing correctly at 13ac but then worrying enough about the other two that I crossed it out before … Read more “23,573 – Plenty of standards on view”

Solving time 7:55 Not that snappy, but a good puzzle – no obscure words except maybe CUTIS, and wordplay subtlety rather than difficult “general knowledge”. A quick reminder that today sees the second qualifier for … Read more “23,572 – Make it snappy, Peter”

Solving time: 40’ but missing two NW answers Rather difficult – and I discovered I don’t do all that well under pressure – I have to get out of the house about 20 minutes ago… … Read more “Times 23571/cryptic interruptus”

Solving time : 54 minsI felt pretty pleased with this time – there were a few words I didn’t know. A couple of times I got the definition, but couldn’t see the wordplay for ages. … Read more “23,570 – He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare…”

Solving time: 4:15 After some recent improvements, this is another of those puzzles which leaves you wondering if this crossword is edited/proofread at all. Either I have missed something (quite possible), in which case I … Read more “ST 4218 (Sun 1 Apr) – Goonlike schemata”