Category: Quick Cryptic

An elegant puzzle characterised by a number of cryptic double definitions / clues – which are fine if you are on the setter’s wavelength, but can prove tricky if you are not (somewhat like a … Read more “Quick Cryptic 582 by Teazel”

A challenging crossword which I managed to get through in just over 10 minutes – but they weren’t easy minutes and included a great deal of interest and a blind guess. I’m not sure how … Read more “Quick Cryptic 581 by Joker”

  This is Tracy’s 53rd puzzle and judging by my solving time of 6 minutes I’d say it’s at the easier end of the scale. There are a couple of answers, maybe 11ac and 4dn, … Read more “Times Quick Cryptic 580 by Tracy”

Phew! Some tricky clues here, in particular 7d and 15d, which made it feel harder than it actually was in the end. A few crosswordland abbreviations to watch out for – RA (Royal Academician) for … Read more “Quick Crossword 579 by Hurley”

A nice offering from Dazzler, this. I found it about as close to ‘average’ difficulty as I could pinpoint, whatever that might mean what with all the different wavelengths floating around. I’m not sure how … Read more “Quick Cryptic No 578 by Dazzler”

I made a slow start to this, not seeming to get a hold anywhere despite one or two easy starters. Came to a grinding halt in the SE corner and took longer than usual to … Read more “Quick Cryptic Number 577 by Izetti”

This is a very clever, good fun crossword – thank you Mara for clever clueing – lovely surfaces and cunning anagram indicators. I should have spent more time enjoying it but quick, quick very, very … Read more “Quick Cryptic 576 by Mara”

Only Marty’s eighth Quicky offering by my reckoning, and I found this one quite tricky – though part of that was because I managed to put in a wrong answer for 10A that made my … Read more “Quick Cryptic 575 by Marty”

An enjoyable crossword and clear clues. Nougettes sounded like a possibility for 11a – misled into thinking nutty was an anagram indicator, and yes, I know, that still doesn’t work! – but everything else went … Read more “Quick Crossword 574 by Orpheus”

This took me 13 minutes, three more than my target, for no easily accountable reason. There are a couple of pieces of Brit-centric general knowledge (10 and 23 across, 20 down) and more than the … Read more “Quick cryptic No 573 by Teazel”