Category: Daily Cryptic

Time: 25:21, so a challenging piece as far as I’m concerned, though full of delights and flashes of sudden realisation. I’d like to say, as a proper blogger, that I worked everything out as I … Read more “Times Cryptic 29374 A chorus of approval.”

This crossword I think is the third of the preliminary qualifiers at the Championships earlier this month. I found it harder than the second one, but easier than the first.

Half-way through I checked that I was not solving a QC by mistake.

Essentially, an easy puzzle, but with a few bits that might throw you

1:15:23, a gargantuan time for a very difficult puzzle, which was nevertheless very enjoyable to solve. Really the time was just about one hour, but the last 15 minutes were spent on a single clue.

Probably this puzzle hails from you-know-who. I’m getting used to his style. I was able to spot his wordplay immediately, nearly every time, but I wasn’t able to find the right synonyms.

Time taken: 6:36. I found this one on the easy side, but a look at the early times shows that I compare pretty favorably to two solvers that are usually faster than me, so maybe … Read more “Times 29368 – Torah Thursday”

An excellent puzzle with some fine, smooth surfaces, a healthy sprinkling of wit and the usual menagerie of animals and fish to entertain us.

The top half seemed easy even when some answers were unknown to me…

The puzzle was not terribly difficult, with some mild attempts to conceal the literals.   Well, one of two of them may give a little trouble, but then you can turn round and use the cryptic fairly easily -so a Monday puzzle, not a Friday.