Category: Weekend Cryptic

Solving time: 48:55 I never concentrated in History at school, but I managed to drag 23a up from somewhere. I’m also not sure where I managed to pull 11a from either, but it was in … Read more “Sunday Times 4612 (19 Oct 2014) by Tim Moorey”

Times Championship day, when the puzzle (it always seems to me) is extra-hard just to rattle the competitors before the main event. For a change, not wanting to be rattled, and because I was driving … Read more “Saturday Times 25921 (18th October)”

Nice to put some faces to names at the championship yesterday. Unfortunately I seem to have picked up some sort of bug from my kids so wasn’t really in the mood for the pub, but … Read more “Sunday Times 4611 by Dean Mayer – does it hurt? Every time.”

Solving time 11:34, so quite an easy one. This week’s will probably be another kettle of fish entirely. Maybe it’s just nerves, but I always find the Saturday puzzle on Championships day to be extra-tough. … Read more “Saturday Times 25915 (11th Oct)”

Solving time: 33:06 A fairly gentle offering this week. Nothing particularly stood out for a COD, but there was nothing I hated either, so quite a vanilla puzzle I felt. But that’s not intended as … Read more “Sunday Times 4610 (5 Oct 2014) by Jeff Pearce”

Solving time approx. 12 minutes (I had a bit of a backlog on Monday but managed to get this and four others done on the 1 hour train journey to London – great practice for … Read more “Saturday Times 25909 – (4th Oct): Villa Rides!”

7:49. Another in a run of easy Sunday puzzles. The daily puzzles have been a bit tough for the last few weeks though, so a bit of light relief is welcome. Across 1 One to … Read more “Sunday Times 4609 by Tim Moorey”

I took a while to get going with this one for some reason, even though the first two acrosses went straight in, and stumbled over the line in 16:33. Looking at it again today I … Read more “Saturday Times 25903 (27th Sept)”

Solving time: about 55 mins Another excellent puzzle from Dean. I wasn’t keen on 11, and Spoonerisms do nothing for me, but these were minor blips amongst a host of brilliant offerings. As ever with … Read more “Sunday Times 4608 (21 Sep 2014) by Dean Mayer”

Solving time probably around 20 minutes – can’t be too accurate as I was solving it while working from home and had numerous interruptions, but I found it quite tricky in places – certainly much … Read more “Saturday Times 25897 (20th Sep)”