Thank you

owen@camosun.bc.ca

I too would have been interested to hear more about the spread in difficulty (or at least in times); I look forward to the data (if not too late!).
I too feel that I vary a great deal in speed, depending on things like how well I slept; perhaps you could have got (or did get) a little more information by doing them in batches (noting the order!), though quite how one would interpret the results I’m not sure. The curious thing (which is clearer with Sudoku-like puzzles) is that I don’t feel as if I am thinking more slowly, it just takes longer on the watch, as though subjective time slows in proportion.

I find myself all too readily/lazily distracted by Sudoku and Kakuro or a quick crossword, even though I find cryptic crosswords more satisfying than those.
When I try one it is the Grauniad (on paper), but I seldom complete it; I know there is a setter who often seems easy to me, though I didn’t think it was Rufus; Araucaria is usually fun, and not always (all) hard.
I don’t mind quite fairly freestyle cluing, but I do like prepositions to be consistent with the direction of the clue.

Is it simply your style to refer to yourself sporadically in the third person, or is there some other significance?

Excellent work, nmsindy!

I don’t seem to be able to get the Independent crossword – wrong version of Java, or something that I can’t get around

Something else I’m interested in is how “bursty” different people’s crossword solving is – I often get stuck for a couple of minutes, but then after getting one clue, another three or four follow quickly. Other friends of mine very steadily put in a clue every 30 seconds or so. All the newspapers with interactive crossword sites could collect this interesting data, but I’ve no idea if they actually do (or how one could get to analyse it)…

I’d love to see the spreadsheet. My id is shuchi [at] crosswordunclued.com.

meicgoodyear at hotmail.com

I have a daily train journey of 1 hour 10 minutes, which is enough to cope with the i, Guardian, FT and Times on most days as well as to read as much of the i as I can face. I only see the Telegraph if someone orphans a copy on the train, but would agree the Toughie is abot the same as Guardian and i.

I’d agree the FT is generally easiest (median solve <8 minutes), and the Guardian and i/Indy a little harder (though I find Don Manley's Guardian puzzles harder than his others). Median solve for these 11-12 minutes. Overall times are censored (in the statistical meaning of the term) as unless a puzzle is really super (most of the late Bunthorne's for example) I only give any puzzle about 20 minutes max, and there are usually about 2 a week I cannot do in that time – this week GAFF in the FT, sometimes the Times Saturday, sometimes Boatman. I started with Everyman, but rarely bother now, having been spoilt by AZED and the Mephisto now being available online.

G.robertson295@btinternet.com

Thank you

Both a labour of love and a useful guide for all those editors I’d have thought.

Plainly my puzzles are not tough enough though …