Solving time 6:44 I enjoyed this puzzle, although there were a couple of clues I didn’t fully understand until writing up these notes. Left side was fairly empty until a lucky quick bit of anagram-spotting … Read more “23,500 – time to sort out a couple of points”

Solving time: 6:41 This wasn’t as hard as my first, fruitless minute suggested. The top left was probably my slowest corner, so anyone who managed to get either 1ac or 1dn on first look may … Read more “23,499 – Something For The Weekday”

23,498 – Know your rightsSolving time: 1h 20m It took a while to get going today, quite a few clues would have stumped me if I didn’t have letters already in place. A good mixture … Read more “23,498 – Know your rights”

Solving time : 6m10s – Felt like a good time, as the NW corner particularly took some (fast) concentrated thought to deduce. One or two references, and odd words, that I knew (and one word … Read more “23,496 – Lift & separate”

Solving time : 14:07  Felt like hard work this morning, though no individual clue is especially obscure.  Not so many cultural allusions as usual, but English Lit references all the way from Shakespeare to Andy … Read more “23495 – Hard cheese”

Solving time 6:19 One or two North country words, so I idly wonder whether this is from a “north of Watford Gap” setter. And some well-disguised clues such as 17A for constructions I must have … Read more “23,494 – from the North or the classical Med?”

Solving time: About 8 minutes with a 45 minute power nap half way through (it’s been one of those days…). Most of this was fairly straightforward but 22ac and 12dn stumped me at first. * … Read more “23,493 – Fine until the 22dn”

Solving time: 56 minutesI went through this at a steady pace.There were a good variety of clues, with quite a few straightforward ones for us beginners to get cracking with. I found 13D difficult but … Read more “23,492 – still trying, still learning”