Category: Quick Cryptic

A lovely puzzle from Hurley. At 9 minutes I was a minute slower than yesterday done just before, except I had one wrong at 11ac, which is what I get for trying to be too … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 2008 by Hurley”

Middling time, good fun. What excellent anagrams at 23ac and 2dn! I did not get 1ac straightaway, which would have helped enormously in this grid, but the answer bubbled up a few moments later. Other … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 2007 by Teazel”

Introduction 7:27. Rather held up in the end by the bottom-right-most clues. I have some parsing to do while I write the blog! Solutions Across 1   Not long ago, left-winger moved to the middle … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 2006 by Izetti”

An entertaining puzzle with heavy use of cryptic definitions which I greatly enjoyed, viz. 8A, 16A, 20A and 9D. Many thanks to Wurm (whom I have only met infrequently, if at all (cue stats confirmation … Read more “QC 2005 by Wurm”

I rattled through this in about 4 minutes, but it contains a lot of crossword staples that less experienced solvers might not be so familiar with. There’s at least one whole clue that I’ve seen … Read more “Quick Cryptic 2004 by Oink”

I needed all of my 15 minute target, save a few seconds, to complete this puzzle from Tracy, despite plenty of anagrams, hiddens and double definitions to get my teeth in to.  The top half … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 2003 by Tracy”

For me, this was a bit of a tricky one, but other solvers seem to have done pretty well.   Perhaps I am not on the wavelength?   Normally, Pedro is quite an easy setter for me, … Read more “Quick Cryptic No 2002 by Pedro”

Our odyssey through the pleasant terrain of Crosswordland continues with Teazel. Some of us spin through these adventures stately as a galleon while some – the sub 5 minuters – seem to be aboard a … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 2001 by Teazel – what are you doing Dave?”

Solving time: 8 minutes. Today we have another milestone as we reach Quick Cryptic #2000 and it’s fitting that it should be set by Des as he was responsible for the very first puzzle published … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 2000 by Des”

A neat and pleasant Quick Cryptic from Joker today to finish the week’s Times series. Some gentle clueing, I think, helped me complete this in my fastest time for a while. I liked the building … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1999 by Joker”