Category: Weekend Cryptic

There were no “meh” moments, just much merriment. I particularly liked the definitions so well hidden in plain sight for 1A, !0A and 21A. Definitions elsewhere were sneaky in other ways (“School of note”). I … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4841, 10 March 2019, by David McLean — A barking good puzzle!”

Welcome, travellers. This puzzle will take us through Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, and a Pacific island, on our way to South America. We’ll need lots of foreign money! The puzzle wasn’t particularly hard, but featured lots … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27294 – Saturday, 09 March 2019. Show me the money.”

14:29. This was another very straightforward puzzle by Dean’s standards, I thought. There’s the hint of a theme in here: something about an INIQUITOUS place where there are NO HALF MEASURES and HEDONISTs and HOOLIGANS … Read more “Sunday Times 4840 by Dean Mayer”

This was a fly-by-night effort. In other words, I did it on an inter-city flight on my way home from a long meeting. Under the circumstances, it went reasonably quickly – at least I finished … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27288 – Saturday, 02 March 2019. Snakes on a plane.”

Besides the somewhat obscure word at 10 that is partly clued by an equally obscure definition, this was pretty straightforward. I know my headline is stretching the actual facts of the grid, but it’s the … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4839, 24 February 2019, by David McLean — PROTESTERS below the CONDO”

11:50. I found this pretty easy for one of Dean’s, but it is typically brilliant in a way I’ve tried to highlight below. Significantly though this week’s puzzle isn’t one of Jeff Pearce’s: as Peter … Read more “Sunday Times 4838 by Dean Mayer”

Saturday, 16 February 2019 – Times Cryptic No 27276. Up in the air. I solved this puzzle on an iPad on an intercity air flight. It was all done by the time I landed, bar … Read more “Saturday, 16 February 2019 – Times Cryptic No 27276. Up in the air.”

I don’t remember feeling this one was particularly hard, but I was unstressed and unpressed for time, so no momentary difficulty felt frustrating. There were plenty of chewy bits to savor, including one word that … Read more “Sunday Times Cryptic 4837, 10 February 2019, by David McLean — No sweat!”

This seemed fairly straightforward for a Saturday. I finished comfortably over lunch. There was a good helping of clever wordplay, and lots of gravy. I liked 12, 17 and 27ac, and 16, 19 and 24 … Read more “Times Cryptic No 27270 – Saturday, 09 February 2019. Good for the digestion.”

24:39. A magnificent toughie from Dean this week, I thought. A lot of the difficulty here is in the definitions, which often use secondary and/or oblique meanings of words. As is often the case with … Read more “Sunday Times 4836 by Dean Mayer”