Solving time : 9m04s – Feels like a fairly feeble time for a puzzle that didn’t in retrospect have anything monstrous (except perhaps GILLRAY, which was well-checked and well-clued), but I really got a bit … Read more “23,508 – Stupider and stupider”
Category: Daily Cryptic
23507 – parse mildly livid
Solving time : 15:24 A very enjoyable crossword. Clever surfaces (eg 1A, 1D, 14) and mainly economic cluing – by my counting only ten of the clues have linkwords. I don’t object to linkwords, but … Read more “23507 – parse mildly livid”
23,506 – A mistake made stupIDLY
Solving time 7:45, but one wrong answer. Calming down from my irritation with myself, there’s some good stuff here, with interesting steps like “unfortunate lot of chickens” => FOWL PEST. Beginner’s notebook entries: O.R. = … Read more “23,506 – A mistake made stupIDLY”
23,505 – Corridor of uncertainty
Solving time: 23’40” (last 14 mins on 1ac and 2dn) I didn’t solve the first few clues I looked at, but after that seemed to get on pretty well with what felt a trickyish puzzle. … Read more “23,505 – Corridor of uncertainty”
23,504 – An enjoyable caper
Solving time : 41 minutesA pretty quick time for me today – a mix of standard wordplay that I am quite used to now, and some good surface readings that weren’t too confusing. I particularly … Read more “23,504 – An enjoyable caper”
23,502 – I’m grinding MY teeth
Solving time : 9m54s – this crossword frustratingly kept me at bay – a lot of the answers, when I eventually got them, showed no reason why they should have taken so long from the … Read more “23,502 – I’m grinding MY teeth”
23501 – 9A
Solving time : 9:52 Apologies if my review seems a bit liverish. Last night was excellent fun, and my head is suffering slightly this morning from the beer, Rioja and puzzles. I have a suspicion … Read more “23501 – 9A”
23,500 – time to sort out a couple of points
Solving time 6:44 I enjoyed this puzzle, although there were a couple of clues I didn’t fully understand until writing up these notes. Left side was fairly empty until a lucky quick bit of anagram-spotting … Read more “23,500 – time to sort out a couple of points”
23,499 – Something For The Weekday
Solving time: 6:41 This wasn’t as hard as my first, fruitless minute suggested. The top left was probably my slowest corner, so anyone who managed to get either 1ac or 1dn on first look may … Read more “23,499 – Something For The Weekday”
23,498 – Know your rights
23,498 – Know your rightsSolving time: 1h 20m It took a while to get going today, quite a few clues would have stumped me if I didn’t have letters already in place. A good mixture … Read more “23,498 – Know your rights”