Category: Quick Cryptic

A bit of a trickier one today from Teazel – at a minute-and-a-half over target this took a touch longer than yesterday’s 15×15, with five fewer clues. That was also with several unparsed until post-solve, … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1708 by Teazel”

Nice puzzle – average time. Following on from yesterday’s Japanese poetry lesson, I was forced to guess a bit more general knowledge today (18ac, 20ac), and I was slow to think of the required woman … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1707 by Orpheus”

I was interrupted half way through this so don’t have time to reflect level of difficulty but I would say this is at the easier end of the Izetti spectrum. As, usual, there’s lots to … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1706 by Izetti”

A very enjoyable puzzle for the start to the week. Fairly straightforward as is the Monday tradition but once again I did enjoy quite a few of the clues even though they didn’t hold out … Read more “QC 1705 by Mara”

I found this thoroughly enjoyable. Some fairly convoluted wordplay, but not too difficult. Describing a banjo as a ‘sort of guitar’ sounds like it might upset a purist somewhere. 6 minutes Across 1 Miser upset … Read more “Quick Cryptic 1704 by Joker”

It is about 6 months since I blogged a Pedro QC, and it is nice to see him back on my bailiwick as I managed to solve this, just, inside my 15 minute target.  Some … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1703 by Pedro”

Introduction 22:09. Took longer than many 15×15 puzzles take me. I was mainly done in by the long anagrams. Not being British, I had to take bits and pieces of names of UK locales and … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1702 by Tracy”

My goodness, I found this 19dn. It is true that the building work next door has been somewhat vexing and that I haven’t had time since last Tuesday to enjoy any cryptic work-outs, but 18 … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1701 by Wurm”

Solving time: 10 minutes. Mostly straightforward although I was missing the GK required for arriving at 16ac other than via wordplay. 18dn is probably unknown to some, but I had met it in a previous … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1700 by Hurley”

A neat quick crossword from Mara today with a good variety of clues. Nothing too tricky, I think, but you do need to “lift and separate” a couple of times – COD to one of … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1699 by Mara”