Crossword Help Forum
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Yes, the MP Austen Chamberlain claimed in a 1934 letter to the Times that, while he himself had completed that day's puzzle in 41 minutes, the Provost of Eton [M R James] "measures the time required for boiling his breakfast egg by that needed for the solution of your daily crossword - and he hates a hard-boiled egg."

This prompted a plaintive reply from P G Wodehouse which included the lines "On behalf of...those humble strivers who like myself have never yet succeeded in solving an entire Times crossword puzzle, I strongly resent these Austen Chamberlains and what not flaunting their skill in your columns. Rubbing salt in the wounds is what I call it. To a man who has been beating his head against the wall for twenty minutes over a single anagram it is g. [gall] and wormwood to read a statement like that one about the Provost of Eton and the eggs."

I'm with PGW on that one.

Yes, PGW tells it as it is! :-)

Very interested in others’ opinions here.

My PB - FWIW - for a Quick Cryptic is 3:22 - which maps to a score of 850.

This was with tap-tap-tap on an iPhone in a Lifeproof case - which adds sluggishness to keystrokes - and was before using ‘Crossword Club mode’ which skips prefilled cells.

I think that *maybe* using a keyboard on a good day with a favourable puzzle I could shave 60-90 secs off this, so I don’t think sub 2 min is unfeasible for a Quick.

Subtract a couple of decades’ worth of cognitive decline, to do the Cryptic in the same time as I now do the Quick?

Yes, not unfeasible - but I wholly concur that if the rate limiting step is keystroke/data entry, the high scores must be at least open to scrutiny.

I do accept, though, that, demonstrably, the elite really do complete competition puzzles under competition conditions in times similar to those demonstrated in the club, and they really do make it look that easy.

The leaderboard I refer to in my OP is the full cryptic crossword in The Times.

There’s an excellent website xwdsnitch.herokuapp.com which takes the times of the verified solvers from the daily Times cryptic to grade each day’s offering.

On there it shows the times of the best guys such as those mentioned earlier: Magoo, Mohn, Verlaine etc

From memory I think Magoo’s best time for a daily cryptic online is around 2.40.

On an easy day, usually Mondays there will be a few people with sub-4 minutes.

There are a whole host of people who do submit artificially low times for whatever reason but this website has eradicated them over time.

Still doesn’t change the Times leaderboards but they’re not doing anyone any harm - it’s not as if there is a prize or anything. It could be that they just want to record their completion online having done it in the paper

The Times Leader Board is a source of constant irritation to me - it has neither point nor merit.

I solve the Saturday and Sunday Prize cryptics off-line prior to submission. My times for filling the on line grid are around 4 minutes for the daily cryptics, 6 for Mephisto and 15 for the Cryptic Jumbo.

Who are these people trying to impress? It's all a bit sad.

Speed solving, very much like speed reading, is based on technique. Personally, I can't see any point in doing a puzzle where one is entering words largely by rote and a limiting factor is one's typing speed; it isn't 'solving' in the sense that I would understand it, and it is surely an indication that one should have moved on to a much bigger barrel for one's fish-shooting some time ago.

Genuine super-rapid Times crossword solving times only impress me in the way that I was impressed by the pair of Scandinavian lads on You Bet! some years ago who could identify car makes and models by the sound of the driver's door closing. However, anyone who is regularly solving Listener puzzles - correctly - in less than 5 minutes would gain my respect and admiration.

Apparently, Mark Goodliffe’s median average time for The Listener is about half an hour and doubt there’s anyone faster.

That’s pretty incredible as I’m usually still trying to understand the preamble in that time!

Hi Chris,

I don't want you think your John Cage 4.33 reference went unnoticed 😉😁

Chrise Brendan

Just looked it up - very clever idea