Category: Quick Cryptic

Right up to the wire of 10 minutes – the long anagram at 5dn being the cause of the late tension – and satisfaction. Four double definitions seems quite a lot but the only one … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1941 by Mara”

Solving time:10 minutes, so I achieved my target time but it with barely a second to spare. I don’t know now what delayed me. As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1940 by Teazel”

Well if this excellent quick crossword from Felix made you toil and trouble, the setter will have achieved his objective. Lots of lovely deceptively hidden definitions, and neat wordplay and surfaces. I particularly enjoyed 10A, … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1939 by Felix”

Possibly a touch on the gentle side of average difficulty today. I say possibly: I seem to be solving better than usual at the minute and took 6:33, around a minute quicker than yesterday’s done … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1938 by Trelawney”

This was difficult, but the clueing is scrupulously fair and often very clever. I certainly enjoyed the challenge, but it took longer to complete than any QC of late. Newbies getting stuck, improvers completing the … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1937 by Izetti”

At just over 12 minutes, this took nearly twice as long as yesterday’s. I struggled mostly in the NW. After solving this QC I carried on chewing away at a paper version of last Friday’s … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1936 by Tracy”

Everything here went in pretty smoothly for me. There were a couple of clues (17A and 5D) that pushed me to the edge of my GK, but they still went in straight away because in … Read more “QC 1935 by Orpheus”

I reckon some will find this a bit of a challenge. The NW corner is the hardest part, which makes it difficult to get going and tends to put you on the back foot for the … Read more “Quick Cryptic 1934 by Teazel”

An interesting challenge from Mara, with a high number of double definitions and enough anagrams to keep me happy.  I finished the puzzle in 11 minutes, despite finding it difficult to make an initial entrance, … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1933 by Mara”

Introduction 6:29. Some tricky stuff in here I was lucky to semi-biff. I’ll be parsing many of these clues fully for the first time as I write the blog! Solutions A brief summary of cryptic … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1932 by Joker”