Just tried an experiment this weekend. Saturday: got up c.9:00, collected the Times and Independent on the way in to work, spent the morning doing a bit of forging and welding, then discussed a charity appeal with my daughter, and delivered a Martin Tipple (10) to, and had a jam with, my musician grandson; went home and spent the afternoon tending my vegetable garden - put up three more growbags of tomatoes on the roof, drank a couple of beers, planted out some more runner beans (most veg damn slow to grow this year - but salads good), and cleared-up the front garden a bit. . G&T's at 6, then did some emailing to friends and some online Scrabbling - have 10 games on the go with my son and various mates - later watched all of Murray and Baghdatis - Wow! until 11. then bed and some x wording to settle me down.
Sunday, up 9, leisurely breakfast, then writing and copy-editing stuff for our magazine - discussions on phone, some e-mailing. another round of 10 Scrabble moves. Out for a walk. Drank a couple of beers. Bit more gardening. 6.00 G&T, telly, watched all of foottie final Spain-Italy (Wow, again!), then bed.
The point of all this is that in between I managed to complete Times Jumbo Cryptic 986 in its entirety by midnight on Sunday, almost totally out of my own unaided skull - using my old paper Chambers almost entirely for confirmation. - and certainly without using this site or any other electronic solving engines - promise!.
OK - I have the feeling that this week's puzzle isn't as hard as they can get.- but even so...
BUT I also went back to the previous week's Independent 'Inquisitor', which I'd got some tentative entries for already; and completely solved that, too - again, I didn't use any outside aids for word analysis other than paper Chambers for confirmations, except for Googling a couple of speculative answers because they just weren't given in Chambers, and to check a personal name. And, of course it was topical, so the theme flashed up Damascus Road-style
So, much more pleasant and fun than taking the 'easy' option of being patronised by phillip potter from berkshire on the forum - and a hell of a lot more sense of achievement.and mental workout.
I'm so busy and really have so many other more important windmills still to tilt at - and so few years left to do it in - maybe 5 more if I'm average - that I think I may do less crosswording - which is, essentially, a complete waste of time. and I certainly won't insult my own or your intelligences by participating in this forum - it's like buying a doctorate by mail order.
rambler: your comments about this forum on 29th June (on paul's 'times cryptic 985' thread with 28 posting - rmbler's is the last one) was meant to be supportive, but just totally depressed me. I really haven't got time to be involved with things where this sort of atmosphere prevails.
Rosalind; you're a nice person - I'm sorry I offended you with that 'flabby' - totally in an intellectual sense - but I don't take it back.
I can't see how altruism is any justification for dumbing-down what is meant to be a hard task.
Mary6 : you're a smart cookie - get the hell out of this cozy clubhouse and solve them on your own - the sense of achievement as you get better at it will be worth all the angst.
Despedida!