Category: Quick Cryptic

A highly entertaining puzzle with excellent surfaces that made for some enjoyably surreal associations of ideas and images.  I’d put this squarely on the harder end of the scale – around 10 for me.    A … Read more “Quick Cryptic 503 By Tracy”

I thought this puzzle was around the middle of the spectrum in terms of degree of difficulty. No obscurities, but some of the clues seemed to offer a range of possible constructions that required exploration … Read more “Quick Cryptic 502 by Dazzler”

Distractions meant that I jumped in and out of this which can sometimes help but in this case caused incorrect entries at 9 and 20ac. Unraveling all this together with long anagrams gave me a … Read more “Quick Cryptic 501 by Joker”

Today sees a milestone with the publication of Quick Cryptic No 500 following the inaugural puzzle which I had the pleasure of blogging on 10 March 2014. This innovation has certainly created a lot of … Read more “Quick Cryptic 500 by Corelli – D-Day!”

Not too many hold-ups with this one, despite a deliberately unhelpful capital letter in 3d – by then I had enough checkers not to be searching for French words. Clever turn of phrase in 23a, … Read more “Quick Cryptic 499 by Hurley”

A well-composed puzzle with some very neatly turned clues.  Nothing obscure or unfair.  Yes, that’s still me, except that it isn’t of course. Just for some variety I’m ringing the changes with my userpics between … Read more “Quick Cryptic 498 by Orpheus”

Nice and straightforward again this morning, with a number of addition or charade type clues. Only hold ups for me were failing to spot the indicator at 5dn (very easy to read over it), and … Read more “Quick Cryptic Number 497 by Grumpy”

I found this on the easier side – completing in 10 minutes – plus one extra minute for 7dn where I couldn’t see the wood for the trees. Very enjoyable though with lots of very … Read more “Quick Cryptic 496 by Flamande”

A tricky one from Izetti today. I generally attempt to solve the Quickies in clue order – this puzzle required several passes before 7D and (less explicably) 14A yielded. Though my track record of predictions … Read more “Quick Cryptic 495 by Izetti”

After last week’s scamper, I found this one the hardest in a long time, but perhaps others will differ! I think it was due to a number of the definitions (eg 17d, 19a) having meanings … Read more “Quick Cryptic 494 by Joker”