Category: Weekend Cryptic

24:06 for this, ending in failure at 27ac, which contains a usage I have never encountered before. Judging by comments on the club forum I am not alone in this. There were a number of … Read more “Sunday Times 4636 by Tim Moorey”

Excellent one.  One clue – 20a –  gave me all kinds of trouble (but fortunately couldn’t be anything else) thanks to a giant lacuna in my knowledge of venerable pop culture.  This puzzle took me … Read more “Saturday Times 26064 (April 4)”

A distinctly stateside flavour this week, with nary a short third man or a jam roly-poly in sight (although we do have a UK TV presenter on parade). Mr. Mayer provides us with a bit … Read more “Sunday Times 4635 by Dean Mayer – The Americano”

At 26.37 this took me a bit longer than last week’s, for no obvious reason.  Some good misdirection, perhaps aimed at fooling the more experienced solvers into thinking they’re looking for the usual crossword cliches.  … Read more “Saturday Times 26058 (March 28)”

12:33, including a brief interlude to flip over some grilling bacon, so a pretty straightforward solve. Jeff Pearce gets some stick for producing these straightforward puzzles, but I found this one very enjoyable. Across 1 … Read more “Sunday Times 4634 by Jeff Pearce”

Music, history, geography, literature and  Old Testament, giving rather a Times Lit. Supp. feel to this, so I was surprised not to be more en rapport with the setter. In fact, a bit of a … Read more “Saturday Times 26052 (March 21)”

Eric caused trouble today. In one instance he was clearly present, but I could not quite understand how he had got there. In the other, it turned out he was there, but I struggled to … Read more “Sunday Times 4633 by Tim Moorey”

Temping for linxit for the next few weeks while he takes a well-deserved break and ministers to Mrs. L’s torn knee ligament. No big pitfalls here and I clocked in at 19.19 which makes it … Read more “Saturday Times 26046 (March 14)”

18:33. I found most of this straightforward. In fact some of the clues are very easy indeed, a feature that elicited some complaints in last week’s puzzle. But of course there’s absolutely nothing wrong with … Read more “Sunday Times 4632 by Dean Mayer”

The last two weeks have been hard work for me, and I’ve hardly touched a crossword (the pile is mounting up, although I did manage to clear some of the backlog over the last couple … Read more “Saturday Times 26040 (7th March)”