Category: Weekend Cryptic

27:44. Another tricky one from Dean, and highly enjoyable as always. He has a knack for writing clues that I at least find completely baffling until the penny drops. Bog-standard cryptic crossword setting this ain’t. … Read more “Sunday Times 4686 by Dean Mayer – lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate”

20:43 for this one, held up by DUFFEL confidently written in at 6ac! In fact there seemed to be a mini-theme based on 1ac going on here, what with SPENSERIAN (the master of mis-spelling) and … Read more “Saturday Times 26364 (19th March)”

Found this one quite chewy with some tricky definitions (e.g. 7a) and (at least to me) unusual clueing devices (e.g. 17a). 25a caused some comment on the club Forum in terms of (maybe) a singular … Read more “Sunday Times 4685 by Jeff Pearce”

9:39 for this one, solved online for a change (which always seems to knock at least 5 minutes off my solving time). Unfortunately I’ve run out of time to complete my blog so will have … Read more “Saturday Times 26358 (12th March)”

36:27. I thought this was a really first-class puzzle. Rather like Dean Mayer this setter seems to have a mind that works a little bit differently to most, so that there are always lots of … Read more “Sunday 4684 by David McLean – solve, or solve not”

Solving time 14:42. Quite a mixed bag here, with literature and mythology well represented, but also a bit of sport, politics and science. A couple of relatively obscure words (I’m thinking DITHYRAMB and RATAFIA, which … Read more “Saturday Times 26352 (5th March)”

Something of a tour de force from Dean this week, in my view. Decidedly tricky in places (13a was devious in the extreme, and 15a had me pacing around and growling for several minutes until … Read more “Sunday Times 4683 by Dean Mayer – Lean ‘n’ Mean…”

18:50 for this, which was quite tricky in places. The wordplay for 7dn and 26ac took some seeing (although 7dn was easily biffable). I found 16dn and 22dn harder than they should have been too. … Read more “Saturday Times 26346 (27th Feb)”

20m. I got through most of this quickly but then made a bit of a hash of the last few clues. One of these (DESPICABLE) had an arguably rather loose definition, and a couple of … Read more “Sunday Times 4682 by Jeff Pearce – Despicable Lee”

14:40, so about average difficulty for me. Rather more people than usual in the wordplay, and a couple in the grid, so some of it had a TLS-y feel. Nice to see “Our ‘Enery” make … Read more “Saturday Times 26340 (20th Feb)”