Click here to read about the origin of this series of crosswords.
A brief history of the origins of these crosswords for those who are new to them. As a blogger of the Times Quick Cryptic Crossword on Times for The Times every other Friday, I often had comments on the blog bemoaning that The Times only provides a Quick Cryptic on Mondays to Fridays. When I finally gave up work at the end of February 2020, I decided that I would try my hand at compiling crosswords. It was with some trepidation that I published, in May 2020, the first of these Weekend Quick Cryptics to fill the gap. Well it seemed to go down well so I did another. And then my fellow crossword solver and commenter on Times for the Times, Phil Jordan, volunteered to produce some too. And then, more recently, so did Sawbill. So now the three of us take turns, publishing each new crossword via my Friday Quick Crossword blog. The popularity of these has been such that The Times has bowed to pressure and started publishing a Saturday Quick Cryptic online. But there is still no Sunday Times Quick Cryptic so we will continue with these as long as there is sufficient interest.
This time it is my turn to provide the fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic crossword, Number 97 in the series, entitled "Down In The Woods Today". As usual, there is a bit of a hint in the title to some thematic answers. You may need to know the origin of this.... in a discussion on TimesforTheTimes about the vocabulary that appears in crosswords, I promised to include the OUP's Word of the Year for 2023 in my next crossword to show that setters can keep up with the times. In fact it is so new it's not yet in most of the standard dictionaries (although it is in Merriam Webster). My clue for that word gave me the idea for the theme... Enjoy!
You can try and solve the crossword interactively here on MyCrossword or here on crossword.info. As usual you can download a PDF to print which you can find here. Alternatively you can copy and print the image below. Comments and queries are welcome with the solution post (which also gives tips on some of the clues). I will react to any comments or queries there as soon as I can. You can find an index to the complete series of crosswords here.
Thank you John! That was lovely - I think my favourite has to be 3d, in which you successfully misled my brain to all sorts of odd places.
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed it. I must admit I did have a little smile to myself when I thought of the definition to 3d.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much. We both enjoyed a d finished.
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