Category: Daily Cryptic

Solving time: 47’ No need to time myself to the hundredth of a second today: I was held up by 6D, 10A and 23D for about 15 minutes. The last two being subtraction clues (can … Read more “Times 23535/must watch more TV”

Solving time 4:25 Good start with 1A,2,3,4 straight away though 4 showed up one of my occasional spelling idiocies – “theif”. Quite a few wordplay details worked out in full afterwards, but there was enough … Read more “23,534 – very easy”

I found this quite easy – two well-known London references, both long words, solved first time round, no devilishly tricky wordplay, initial slow progress with the acrosses being compensated for with fast solving of the … Read more “Times 23,532 – Quite easy”

Solving time : 7:00 A quick time for me. I felt lucky to know “proa” and “ophicleide” without thinking. And the Hittite is probably the second Uriah one would think of. But otherwise I didn’t … Read more “23531 – another easy Thursday”

Solving time 10:50 Inevitably, after someone said something nice about sub-10 solvers yesterday, I dropped out of that category today, so I wonder whether Tony will emerge from the pampas grass to beat me again … Read more “23,530 – U?M? !”

Solving time: 45’ Maybe it was my mood or maybe the setter’s, but there seemed to be a lot of anxiety and worry in this puzzle: engineers feeling uncertain in a nation gripped by fear, … Read more “Times 23529/Fear and loathing”

[I’m posting this on behalf of David Hogg…]My first go at blogging a Times crossword. A certain amount of literary knowledge was required to complete the puzzle – two across clues required you to know … Read more “Times 23528”

Solving time : 7m15s – At first I thought this was really hard – but then a minute later one or two answers came and I calmed down, and proceeded OK. I think it may … Read more “23,526 – Maybe together the total group can advance afar”

Enjoyable puzzle, with some good misdirection. Easy to break into, but tricky enough to finish, especially the NE quadrant. Solving time: 29 mins (about average for me for the Times) * = anagram ACROSS5 ERE … Read more “Times 23525 – Not too hard”

Solving time 4:49 Probably the easiest puzzle I’ve written about since we changed to a team blog. Got 1A and 4 straight off and never really looked back except for a silly initial guess at … Read more “23,524 – nothing on St Valentine’s day”