The Times Quick Cryptic Crossword book 1: 80 challenging quick cryptic crosswords from The Times (The Times Crosswords)

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The Prize Jumbo Cryptic Crossword is like the daily crossword but bigger and better. The crossword grid used for Saturday is 23×23 and the players have a chance to play their favorite crossword for a much longer time.

MEGALITHIC - An &lit, constructed as follows: A GEM (prized stone set up, ie MEG A) + LIT(erally) + HIC, Latin for "This." ENCUMBRANCE - (k)EN(t) (middle of Kent, where I live) + CUMBRIA NICE, with all the Is removed. Quite a neat clue! Enjoyable puzzle elsewhere that I was merrily biffing my way through before 15ac, and a bit of a pause at 18ac and 16d. 8.30ish for when I limply decided to throw in the towel, for what it’s worth. Poor show from me, good show from Alex, for which many thanks! AcrossI had to study Henry IV Pt 1 for O Level English. I’ve never managed to love Shakespeare’s history plays after that experience. UNCHASTE - UNC(l)E replaces L='a bit' of Lunch, by HAS + T. I don't like the use of 'a bit' to mean 'the first letter'. I don't see where that comes from. connected words. Today, he puts that love of puzzles into The Times Crossword, where he publishes his own COUNTERPRODUCTIVE - *(CUT UP OVER DOCTRINE). The first one of a number of humungous anagrams. Mostly I biffed them and cannot swear to the accuracy of the anagrist in every case ..

CAMOMILE - LIMO (large car) rev., in CAME, advanced. Its restorative powers are unproven. It is being investigated for possibly helping to relieve anxiety. In which case it is probably best not to read the Wiki article ARCHIVAL - The ARAL sea is, sadly, no more. Once the fourth largest lake in the world, it is now, in one of our largest environmental tragedies, the Aralkum desert. For the purposes of this clue it contains CHIV, which is slang for a knife. Nho, but did know chivvy, which has the same root. SET UP - S(mall) E(nglish) + TUP, your ram. "Our Yorkshire Farm," Channel 5's most popular series ever, is my go-to source for tups, tegs, yows and all related farming vocabulary. If you haven't watched it you have a real treat in store. Hello again. This Jumbo I thought was rather more straightforward than average, with no unknowns and only one spelling issue (at 34dn). Certainly a great deal easier than the beast that was 1548, the last one I blogged. There seemed to be a lot of girls (Ena, Esther, Lucy, Susie) and quite a lot of extremely long single words clued with anagrams. What did you think? RED ALERT– RED (ginger) ALE (beer) RT (right). Fun surface. There I was I thinking it was a nice cup of tea that was called for in such circumstances.Definitions underlined in italics, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, {} deletions and [] other indicators. Across Nothing is going right and I cannot see a way forward with this. I predicted on Wednesday that I would be broken by the end of the week, and so it proved. Hi everybody. Despite a good start this took me two minutes over average time, so I clearly had to think a bit. I didn’t know the Wyoming city and had to trust the wordplay, but have no other issues to report. My COD is 15a. I could imagine someone of that name procrastinating by doing this crossword and their reaction on reading that clue. Thanks Izetti!

At The Times, Richard Rogan has been responsible for editing and creating the Cryptic crosswords since 2014. Definitions underlined in italics, ( Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, deletions and [] other indicators. Across

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This was my LOI. I spent fully 3 minutes looking at _O_K_D, even though I was certain the puzzle needed a Z. I’m blaming the time change. MYOPIA– PI (private investigator) in [unruly] ( Mayo)*. Short-sightedness. Did you think the definition was just problem. If so, Wurm might say “gotcha”. Well, I have the honour and privilege to blog a new Setter today, or at least a new Setter’s name (I did think that the ‘filthy place’ in 7d might be a nod towards our regular porcine Setter).

On Saturdays there is also a Prize Jumbo cryptic, similar in style to the daily puzzle but using a 23x23 grid. Definitions underlined in bold italics, ( Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, deletions and [] other indicators. AcrossAt the risk of appalling the musicians in the readership, the “staff” is the set of horizontal lines that music is written on, and the first symbol written is normally (always?) the clef, most commonly the treble clef 𝄞 or the bass clef 𝄢.