Category: Jumbo Cryptic

Hello to you all, on my last Jumbo blog of 2020.  Where has the year gone?  (And if your automatic answer to that is swear-free, you’re a better human than me!)  Anyway, I wish you … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1470 – 28th November”

This crossword is all about 28dn as far as I’m concerned, much though I like Nicolas Poussin and Tom Stoppard. What a marvellous phrase! I liked 13ac which is another sports clue – maybe I … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1469: Preferably Beneath A Pile Of Crunching Bodies”

A run of the mill Jumbo, with a couple of words that I have seen in other crosswords, but not elsewhere. I nearly made a silly mistake but a nagging doubt meant that I checked … Read more “Jumbo 1468”

I thought this was about a middle of the road Jumbo – maybe slightly harder given my time was nearer an hour than my usual 45 minutes. Several clues went over my head at the … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1467 – 7th November”

This started out looking like it was going to be the easiest Jumbo I’d blogged, as I got about half way across the grid top left towards bottom right in a clean sweep.  But there … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1466 – Noddy goes to Princeton”

Hi everyone, and Happy Caturday. A great crossword to savour, I thought.  It took me something like a couple of hours over a few sessions but yielded to applied thinking, with plenty of lovely aha! … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1465 – 24th October. Lots of highs”

Old Trafford, Leeds, Bootle, Redditch, Scafell Pike? Stop, you’re making me homesick! A nicely crafted puzzle of only moderate difficulty but great entertainment value. I particularly liked 10dn and 28dn for general ingenuity married to … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1464: Hit The North”

Very straightforward – I did not time myself but I am sure that it was under 20 minutes. There were very few clues that I needed to go back to. I don’t really have any … Read more “Jumbo 1463”

I think this may be the most entertaining Jumbo crossword I’ve had the pleasure of blogging. Packed full of amusing and inventive wordplay and deceptive definitions, it was, I think, significantly harder than usual, taking … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1462 – 3rd October”

This puzzle kept me occupied for about 55 minutes, longer than normal so something must have been tricky.  First in was LAMB and last was DIE HARD. My square bracket keys took a right hammering … Read more “Times Cryptic Jumbo 1461 – To Saint Joseph of Arimathea, the patron saint of tinsmiths”