NY Times Sunday Puzzles--Need Help?

Cryptic crosswords are the British speciality but I don't know what they are like in the NY Times! I would like to know, and maybe offer some help?
One of my favourites appeared a few weeks ago in the Independent:

Noted producer of Mars bars (5)

The answer was HOLST

I looooove the Times' puzzles. I do pretty well on the cryptics, so I can help ya' Some of the answers, I've found, take me a few days to get. I guess the mind needs to wrap around the problem in some different way.

Anyway, I haven't even looked at the paper yet. :-D

Be glad to help any way I can. As a rule, I do only the Sunday crossword (and that not every week as I don't get the paper every week). But when I do do it, I do it in ink and always finish. (Well, nearly always.) I do the Boston Globe crossword daily because it's available for free on the 'net. You have to pay for the Times' puzzle. But the Globe is so easy, I blush to admit I do it.

Hiya Andy, Of course in ink. The paper quality doesn't really lend itself to pencil. I get the Sunday paper delivered, so I don't do the weekly puzzles. I have puzzle books to keep my mind (what's left of it) occupied during the week.

Thanks for the offer of help. So far we've got helpers but no helpees.

Well, I do the Sunday NYT when I get the paper, which isn't all that often, that involving going to a store across town. When I do do the crossword I do it in ink, often finish but not right away - the puzzle sits around all week getting further attention. I never use any reference material and sometimes I get stuck. The last time I did one I got stuck on current tv show personae, an area of wide ignorance for me.

I have a problem with a crossword puzzle. 3 down has me stumped. The clue is "feline." It's a three letter word. The first letter is C and the last letter is T, but damn if I can't figure out that middle one.

Any ideas?

I do at least one New York Times Sunday Crossword each day -- and usually have two or three set up on various clip boards around the house. (One in each john -- and one bedside.)

I buy books of old ones -- and subscribe to the Monthly New York Times Crossword Club.

Oddly enough, the Sunday Crossword is NOT the most difficult of the week. The Thursday puzzle is, but I almost never do the weekday puzzles.

I love crosswords!

"cute"?

Frank, I heard Shortz interviewed once, and he stated that they get progressively more difficult from monday to sunday. I found this to be more or less true; but I, like you, have often found a thursday puzzle more difficult than a sunday puzzle. and even more frequently a friday one more difficult.

It's my understanding that the Saturday puzzle is the hardest. Monday's is the easiest. Someone gave me a book of Saturday puzzles. A real sadist. LOL.

I read an article by -- I thought it was Shortz -- that said the Thursday puzzle was the toughest, but that the Sunday Puzzle definitely wasn't in any case.

Can't really remember where, but I'll try to find it.

Maybe Friday and Saturday's puzzles are tougher -- and I just remember wrong.

I remember being surprised that the Sunday puzzle was not the toughest!

Frank, your last post jogged my memory a bit. I believe he did say that saturday's was the toughest. I don't remember how he classified sunday's. It is probably hard to classify because it has more clues than the others.

We may have read the same article. I seem to remember the toughest being Thursday too. No matter to me, since I don't do it.

The article I remember said that Saturday was the most difficult (because people had all day to solve it). Thursday was next in difficulty because people were terribly frazzled and harried on Friday, the last day of the week and didn't need more stress.

As I remember, the Sunday puzzles are deliberately varied in difficulty. Twenty percent are "easy", twenty percent, "really challenging" and the rest are in between.

Now when I solve every square, I'm haunted by the dread that I just finished one of the "easy" puzzles.

Rpberta, what's that on the side of your nose?

(Only a true friend would mention such a thing even.)

Andy, My cat Mikey (the new avatar) has random bits of tabby all over him, as if someone took a white cat and a bunch of tabby, cut the tabby parts up in pieces, and threw them in the air. Where the tabby landed is where Mikey has stripes. That's a bit of tabby stripe on the side of his nose. However, if you are, in fact, asking about what's on the side of my nose, I'll have to check in a mirror. Last time I looked there was nothing but skin. :-)

I remember the same thing that Noddy said. Saturday's puzzles are extra hard because people can spend all day working on them. I can start and finish the Sunday puzzle and still not have completed a Saturday puzzle.

BTW, Gus, Here's a hint. Three letter word, starts with c, ends with t--feline. See my avatar.

Gus, I think the word is 'cot.' It's a dialect version of 'ocelot.'

But it could be "cut", a hip way to say "cute".

or 'cit' short for city slicker = an alley cat. Pronounced kit by people who think they are cute