No crossword today?

Author   daveperryPosted on Categories Announcement
Today’s seems to be labelled as a Saturday puzzle, so I suspect that this is the prize crossword printed today because no newspaper will be published on Christmas Day itself. I think that means that Andy will post a blog for this next week, and I get a day off!

I’ll check the paper in the morning to be sure. In the mean time, I did it in about 62 minutes of actual solving time. I printed it off and did it on paper then filled it in online afterwards. Pretty straightforward for a Saturday, I thought, if indeed that’s what it is.

Best not make any more detailed comments at this time or I might get into trouble!

Merry Christmas, all!

21 comments on “No crossword today?”

  1. There will be an ipad puzzle on Christmas Day — which I believe will also be online. The setter concerned.
    1. I look forward to that. The Times advised that an iPad app was in the pipeline but I have seen nothing yet.

      I can’t see anyhing about this on the Club website so I don’t know if if will be available through the website or via an app. It’s odd that it isn’t advertised.

  2. I think I’ve solved it (about an hour) but I would have enjoyed Dave’s rendering of what seemed to me to be some convoluted wordplays (at least one of which I can’t parse at all)!

    You may not be off the hook, Dave. The online version of the ‘paper as printed’ does not describe this as a Saturday puzzle.

    My thanks to all of you, especially the bloggers, who have given me so much pleasure and enlightenment over the past year. Have a good Christmas.

  3. Dave, I’d be surprised if this is a prize puzzle. It carries none of the usual guff about how to submit it, answers next week and all that stuff. And there is going to be a puzzle tomorrow. I think you can blog it.
    1. Online ‘paper as printed’ version does have submission instructions …. (Since closure of village shop, I can’t get the ‘real’ version.)
    2. It’s definitely presented as a prize puzzle on the normal Saturday model in the hard copy of The Times that landed on my doorstep this morning, Jimbo, complete with the usual sending instructions and a promise to name the winners and print solutions on Jan 7. So I think Dave P had better hold off.

      Happy Christmas! Royal Wimbledon Golf Club still closed owing to weather. Any better luck where you are?

      1. Yes, Dave did the right thing

        No golf here for ages. I don’t recall the courses being closed for so long down here. When it rarely snowed it never settled until last year – and then this year is worse. I was out in Dorset yesterday away from the coast and things are really bad. The last time anything like this happened was in the late 1970s when Dorset Council, so unused to snow, managed to lose a snow plough that it borrowed from elsewhere.

  5. Did this in a rather unsatisfying 38 mins and cannot fully understand the wordplay of 3A, 22 A, 25 A, 23 D. Assuming it is indeed not a prize puzzle, I really would welcome enlightenment.
    Merry Christmas to all who fraternise this excellent website.
  7. Definitely a prize puzzle in the hard copy. I agree there are some convoluted word plays and I still don’t get 25a having just about figured the rest
  8. OK. I’ve checked the published hard copy and it too calls it a Saturday puzzle in the small print underneath, and gives submission instructions. It also says the solution won’t be published until next weekend, so I will not be posting a blog for it. I will leave it for Andy to blog as a normal Saturday. I will email him to make sure he is aware of the swap over.

    Instead, I will blog tomorrow’s online puzzle which doesn’t appear like it’s going to be a prize one.

    1. Yes, I’ll blog it next Saturday as if it were tomorrow’s puzzle. No further comments on the clues please (although you’ve all refrained so far, so thanks for that).

      I’m glad you’ve volunteered for tomorrow’s, dave. ‘Er indoors won’t let me near the computer on Christmas Day! The blog for last week’s will appear somewhere near here later on tonight.

      1. I won’t be attempting it during the day tomorrow – I’ll be far to busy with the kids’ new toys! But I should be able to get a blog up tonight before I turn in.
  9. 27 minutes; but as it’s a prize puzzle, I’ll simply take the opportunity to wish everyone a very merry Christmas.
  10. Aside from the fact that I was downloading it on Thursday, I found it very hard to believe it was a prize puzzle, having zipped through it in 20 minutes, about as fast as I’ve ever done any puzzle, and inconceivable for a Saturday. 25a was one of a half-dozen or so that I ‘solved’ without knowing why until I leisurely went through and figured them out (26ac, 6d, etc.); it’s actually straightforward, although being British helps.

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