Solving time : 9m04s – Feels like a fairly feeble time for a puzzle that didn’t in retrospect have anything monstrous (except perhaps GILLRAY, which was well-checked and well-clued), but I really got a bit … Read more “23,508 – Stupider and stupider”
23507 – parse mildly livid
Solving time : 15:24 A very enjoyable crossword. Clever surfaces (eg 1A, 1D, 14) and mainly economic cluing – by my counting only ten of the clues have linkwords. I don’t object to linkwords, but … Read more “23507 – parse mildly livid”
23,506 – A mistake made stupIDLY
Solving time 7:45, but one wrong answer. Calming down from my irritation with myself, there’s some good stuff here, with interesting steps like “unfortunate lot of chickens” => FOWL PEST. Beginner’s notebook entries: O.R. = … Read more “23,506 – A mistake made stupIDLY”
Jumbo 678/Jan 6 – Black and white
Solving time: 17:01 I think my best time for the Jumbo is somewhere in the region 15-17 mins, so this was a pretty quick one. Enough slowness on my part that I’m a bit disappointed … Read more “Jumbo 678/Jan 6 – Black and white”
23,505 – Corridor of uncertainty
Solving time: 23’40” (last 14 mins on 1ac and 2dn) I didn’t solve the first few clues I looked at, but after that seemed to get on pretty well with what felt a trickyish puzzle. … Read more “23,505 – Corridor of uncertainty”
23,504 – An enjoyable caper
Solving time : 41 minutesA pretty quick time for me today – a mix of standard wordplay that I am quite used to now, and some good surface readings that weren’t too confusing. I particularly … Read more “23,504 – An enjoyable caper”
Sunday Times 4207/Yellow goo
The only thing that I wonder about is why yellow goo is lemon curd (see 14D) – is this along the lines of “yellow matter custard”? Across 5 LA-D,[a]I-DA – Verdi’s Aida is probably the … Read more “Sunday Times 4207/Yellow goo”
23497 Saturday – gristly hellcat
Solving time 24:33 I had a bit of a struggle with this puzzle, as there were a few less common words with some unfriendly unches (plus a couple of stupid mistakes slowed me down a … Read more “23497 Saturday – gristly hellcat”
23,502 – I’m grinding MY teeth
Solving time : 9m54s – this crossword frustratingly kept me at bay – a lot of the answers, when I eventually got them, showed no reason why they should have taken so long from the … Read more “23,502 – I’m grinding MY teeth”
23501 – 9A
Solving time : 9:52 Apologies if my review seems a bit liverish. Last night was excellent fun, and my head is suffering slightly this morning from the beer, Rioja and puzzles. I have a suspicion … Read more “23501 – 9A”