As this is our Christmas issue I am going to try and stick to writing only about words that make us feel good.
Our clue for HALCYON was ‘Golden (past)’ but the word came from a Greek myth about a bird (no not a partridge) and has a Christmas association.
Alcyone, daughter of Aeolus, who controlled [more…]
Thank you so much for the wonderful surprise of 2 Cryptic Puzzle books that landed on my doorstep yesterday.
I have been doing your puzzles for years and last year my partner taught me how to do cryptics, and they have quickly become my favourite puzzles.
I spend an hour nearly every morning doing your puzzles [more…]
This is a wonderful slang word for gossip and we have to thank sailors for it.
Water for drinking on a ship was kept in a butt, or a large cask. The cask was scuttled, that is, a hole was cut in it, usually with a hatch as a lid. The hatch could be lifted [more…]
If someone calls you a pompous old fuddy-duddy you will no doubt take offense.
This term meaning stuffy and old-fashioned might well sound like a stuffy old-fashioned expression, but it has only been around for a short time really – well around 100 years, which is recent when you think that so much of our [more…]
Thank you very much for the biggest prize I have won from lovatts, it’s wonderful. From Colossus, I won a stainless steel Breville Cafe Roma espresso/cappuccino machine.
I enjoy doing my favourite crosswords, Baffler and Cryptic, something to get your brain matter exercising. As a senior, I have bought Lovatts for years, and can’t wait [more…]
Thank you so much for my prize in the August Demon (my birthday month too), Collins – Dictionary & Thesaurus book.
You have absolutely no idea how ecstatic I was to not only receive the beautiful prize which I have already used for the next Demon but the feeling of achievement knowing I completed the [more…]
» Code Cracker Starhunts Issue No.52 – now on sale! More infoTo learn more about some of the celebrities appearing in this bi-monthly issue of Code Cracker Starhunts, please make a selection:
Abigail Breslin
Gerard Butler
Jonah Hill
Sofia Vassilieva
Virginia Madsen
» Abigail Breslin
Abigail Breslin, born April 14, 1996, began her acting career at the age of three, making commercials. [more…]
Ban Ki-moon has been the ‘Secretary-General of the UN since 2007’ and featured in the Mega Mix contest No. 58 at 46dn. If you spelt WEIRD with the weird spelling of WIERD at 59ac then you had BAN KE-MOON.
Ban is the family name and Ki-moon his given name. In Korean families it is usual [more…]
The Demon didn’t fail to live up to its name and we could hear the brain cogs turning as you tried to find the answer to 67dn ‘Subjective reporting, … journalism’. Gung-ho didn’t fit, neither did genre. The answer (you may want to make note of this one for future reference) was GONZO. It [more…]
