Category: Weekend Cryptic

15:03. A puzzle of medium difficulty, I thought, and of the usual high quality. Quite a high cryptic definition count, at four. This sort of clue isn’t universally liked, so this will not please everyone … Read more “Sunday Times 4886 by Dean Mayer – same number same hood”

This was a slow solve for me, but really there isn’t anything fearsome involved. The clue of the day for me was the elegant 5dn. Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle. Clues … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27564 – Saturday January 18th 2020. Hard, not hard.”

Hey, I had a McLean puzzle last go-round! Well, Biddlecombe has explained what happened there… This was great fun, despite the absence of any really unusual vocabulary, nothing previously unknown to work out strictly via … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4885, 12 I 2020, by David McLean — Needling Boris”

Times Cryptic No 27558 – Saturday January 11th, 2020. Another pleasant midsummer Saturday. The setters continue to be gentle in the holiday season. I rolled through this one at a steady pace. Strangely my LOI … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27558 – Saturday January 11th, 2020. Another pleasant midsummer Saturday.”

19:29. I thought this was quite tricky, but a really interesting puzzle with some excellent clues and a nice range of references. No literature to speak of, but nothing too obscure other than perhaps the … Read more “Sunday Times 4884 by Robert Price – galled rocks”

Again, I found this puzzle hard to start and then relatively easy to finish. In other news, Australia is still here. We were planning a family trip to Canberra next week, but had to cancel … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27552 – Saturday, 04 January 2020. Through a smoke haze darkly.”

As I had never blogged a Jumbo before, I was glad to find, once I got started, that this was all fairly straightforward, and a real holiday gift rather than a chore. We have every … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4883, 29 XII 2019, by David McLean — Oh, just see what a glorious fill”

Millions of hectares (over ten million acres) ablaze. Over a thousand homes destroyed. People dead. Tens of thousands evacuated. Smoke giving our cities have the worst air quality in the world. And climate denialist politicians … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27546 – Saturday 28 December 2019. Fire, fire everywhere.”

26:44. The last Sunday before Christmas has been a Jumbo in recent years, so I was surprised and I confess a little disappointed to open this one and see a standard 15×15 grid. Apparently the … Read more “Sunday Times 4882 by Dean Mayer”

In fact while I was solving this puzzle it felt so much like Christmas that, as soon as I saw that the helpers for 2dn were C-R-S—, I wrote in CHRISTMAS without further ado. Too … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27540 – Saturday, 21 December 2019. Feeling a lot like Christmas.”