Solving time: 5:06 Tuesdays have been tricky recently, but fortunately this run has seemingly come to an end for my first posting. Particularly helpful were the four long answers, three consisting of multiple or hyphenated … Read more “23,440 – Beginner’s luck”
23,439 – Two ports today
Solving time : 1h 46m Ports would have to be my weakest area of general knowledge and I get two of them in my inaugural review; I knew Rotterdam, but Oran was a new one … Read more “23,439 – Two ports today”
Independent and Guardian crossword blog goes live
Neil Wellard’s blog for these two puzzles officially goes live tomorrow, with a team of contributors including some of us. There are test posts about recent puzzles already there and I believe most of these … Read more “Independent and Guardian crossword blog goes live”
Mephisto 2409 – Chris Feetenby (+weekend round-up)
Solving time 21:15 – Chambers used for last word (17A) As this is our first posting on Mephisto, here’s some brief information about the puzzle. Mephisto is a puzzle in the “advanced cryptic” tradition of … Read more “Mephisto 2409 – Chris Feetenby (+weekend round-up)”
Sunday Times 4196/Oct 29
Solving time: 15 minutes (Posting this all the way from America — it’s Saturday afternoon here and presumably dead of night in London). The Sunday Times puzzle gets a lot of disrespect from the cognoscenti … Read more “Sunday Times 4196/Oct 29”
23432 – tough Saturday puzzle
Solving time – 24:26 Well, I found it a bit of a hard slog anyway, although I did solve it first thing in the morning when I’m never at my best… Across 5 UPS(=hikes, as … Read more “23432 – tough Saturday puzzle”
23,437 – Aphrodisiacs, slapper and suspender all combining to make this one hard
Solving time :13m 05s I found this one very hard going. No more than two answers entered in the first two minutes, and both of those only thanks to previous experience of very similar devices. … Read more “23,437 – Aphrodisiacs, slapper and suspender all combining to make this one hard”
Indie 6255 by Monk
Solving time: 20 mins give or take A challenging puzzle but fair as I’ve come to expect from Monk. Grid is a double pangram. Continues the current “Jewish culture” trend with one answer (to go … Read more “Indie 6255 by Monk”
23,436 – A bad beginning
Solving time : 9:35… … but with one mistake (11A). Otherwise a very enjoyable puzzle. All the clues read well, and there are some really funny ones, especially 1A. Across 1 QUART(O) – because it … Read more “23,436 – A bad beginning”
23,435 – where did they go wrong?
Solving time 7:41 This is the middle one of the three puzzles from the second preliminary session of the championship. It’s fairly easy for a championship puzzle – 64% solved it within the time limit … Read more “23,435 – where did they go wrong?”