Category: Quick Cryptic

I Thundered through this until I came inexplicably unstuck at 16d. Took 8 minutes in the end. Quite a few write-ins, but the odd trickier one, and a couple of compound anagrams to keep us honest. … Read more “Quick Cryptic 1014 by Tracy”

Fairly straightforward in terms of difficulty I thought, but with some lovely precise and succinct clueing from Teazel.  There are some novel ANAGRINDS (anagram indicators), plenty of double definitions, charades, containers, initialisms, deletions and combinations.  … Read more “Quick cryptic No 1013 by Teazel”

A pleasant, gentle puzzle from Orpheus which I suspect will be eminently accessible to newcomers and which should be meat and drink to more experienced players, with no obscure vocabulary and minimal general knowledge required. … Read more “Quick Cryptic 1012 by Orpheus”

Another quick time for me today – all the more surprising for being an Izetti. Maybe I picked the wavelength – it certainly helped to have spent time in Vancouver where there are references to … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1011 by Izetti”

After the devious delights of QC 1000, the subject of my last QC blog, this is a more straightforward offering from Hurley but nonetheless enjoyable for that. I needed 8 minutes to complete it with … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1010 by Hurley”

A neat and satisfying puzzle from Mara, perhaps slightly harder than usual, I think, as it took me about 1 1/2 minutes over average. Do tell us how you got on. Plenty of fairly straightforward … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1009 by Mara”

A good puzzle from Joker – I found it middle-of-the-road in terms of difficulty and a nice smooth solve, with the few trickier clues offset and interspersed with gentler ones. My only real sticking point … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic No 1008 by Joker”

I tripped myself up several times with this tricky little puzzle, what with some unfamiliar vocabulary and a smidgen of deviousness, ending up with one incorrect (I had O for A in 8dn). Quite satisfied … Read more “Quick Cryptic 1007 by Flamande”

That Alconiere is having some fun with us is not in doubt for this is a pangram without the letter ‘V’ which, research tells me, is a pangrammatic V-lipogram. The question is how much fun? … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 1006 by Alconiere”

A mine of double definitions today, a couple of them very pleasing to the crossword-solving senses (whatever they are) as described below. I found this of medium difficulty (if I give you a scale of … Read more “QC 1005 by Grumpy”