What I really want to know is......

Mollygo

Exactly Lucca, but I remember being excited because I ‘got it’!

I’m constantly surprised at the increasingly myriad ways the setters signal an anagram or a ‘sounds like’ So clever

Exactly Lucca, but I remember being excited because I ‘got it’!

Spotted dick

Do you have a favourite cryptic clue? My introduction to cryptic crosswords was, ‘Saw little Richard making a pudding’. That was in the easy days.

I think that's how it is Suziewoozie - some people just think that way.

I have a French friend ( who teaches English) who picked up doing the Guardian cryptic crossword in a flash - she just ‘got it’ yet my Swedish friend( has lived here 30 years, absolutely fluent, broadcasts and writes articles in English) is completely baffled by the whole concept. I put it down to how your mind works and practice too of course.

Ha ha JackyB I can assure you it's not the doctorate thing that makes these do-able!

Cryptic crosswords are a rarety in Germany, but there is a fairly easy one in our paper on Saturdays but we usually manage that, finishing it over lunch. There are definitely different compilers. Some weeks the questions are on our wavelength, on others it involves more intellectual acrobatics.

We pass on the magazine in Die Zeit which has a very hard cryptic crossword. That's over our heads and we leave it to DS1 and his wife who both have doctorates.

suziewoozie

We do the Guardian cryptic ( or try to) nearly every day . If we haven’t much time, we do the quick crossword but there have been rumblings on the letters page that the latter is getting harder.
One question for Times cryptic crossworders, do you have the name of the setter above the crossword? I know it’s a shared pool and we know who the setter is. This gives us a general pointer as to their style and also the odd one who completely baffles us.

No. I sometimes do the Guardian as well and I remember the days if Araucaria!

Duh! Watching!!!! (no idea how that got to be war hung)

I like war hung this lady's videos. She does decluttering to the nth degree (a bit too much, if you ask me, but I enjoy her enthusiasm). But she is down to earth and realistic. Of course, she is younger and hasn't accumulated so much clutter, but she has 4 children and she includes them in the project.

This one is about how she deals with paperwork.

youtu.be/wdX-aj9LQ2Y

kittylester

I'm baffled by why I can do the Quick cryptic but not the Times 2.

I can do cryptic but often struggle with non cryptic too ...weird isn’t it?

Jaxjacky

Grammaretto anything important I file, it sits on the stairs, then the upstairs landing, eventually into a metal file box in alphabetical order, a significant amount is now via email, so is filed online. Anything else is straight into the recycling bin.

My system exactly - my desk ( upstairs) has a pile on it waiting to be filed but nothing goes on the stairs unless it’s been dealt with. My newspapers go to a neighbours guinea pigs weekly. She says they ( the guises pigs) finish the crosswords when they’re bored. ( see what I did there ??)

Grammaretto the name for the problem where paperwork gathers in huge "drifts" is flatsurfaceitis.

I have just cleared a half-dozen or so newspapers into the recycling bag and noticed a pile of shopping lists/receipts and some leaflets have appeared to replace them.

Grammaretto anything important I file, it sits on the stairs, then the upstairs landing, eventually into a metal file box in alphabetical order, a significant amount is now via email, so is filed online. Anything else is straight into the recycling bin.

I never could do it kitty
I prefer codewords these says and scrabble on-line. My brain dumbed down years ago.

I would like to know what everyone else does with all the paper clutter that comes into the house and never leaves. Do you have a filing system? A day when you tackle it all?
My paper piles fill most of the kitchen table, the sideboard, the telephone table, the bedside table. I live alone so there is nobody else to blame for the clutter.

We do the Guardian cryptic ( or try to) nearly every day . If we haven’t much time, we do the quick crossword but there have been rumblings on the letters page that the latter is getting harder.
One question for Times cryptic crossworders, do you have the name of the setter above the crossword? I know it’s a shared pool and we know who the setter is. This gives us a general pointer as to their style and also the odd one who completely baffles us.

Today’s was quite easy. The clue 24 Across is a bit misleading.

Can not do cryptic at all, mystery to me too.
but I love crosswords and Sudoku. I didn't used to like puzzle books but was bought some at Christmas and have got used to them.

I like sudoku as well but find the fiendish ones easier than the so called easy ones which I almost always mess up.

We only have the Times at the weekend. I like cryptics but usually only do the Quick cryptic. I find I do more number puzzles like Chain Link and Number Hexagon than crosswords.

I only get the Times on Saturdays, I agree it’s a bit harder, I’m still wading through the Jumbo.

Perhaps they have a new compiler - one gets used to a certain style?

I'm baffled by why I can do the Quick cryptic but not the Times 2.

I love crosswords but I can't do cryptic clues