I happened to be reading an extract from a Christmas mummers’ play (as you do – actually it was in John Julius Norwich’s An English Christmas) and came across the following verse:
In comes I, old Beelzebub,
Over my shoulder I carry my club,
And in my hand a frying-pan
I count myself a jolly old man
So it seemed a good idea to put up another new Beelzebub in my intermittent revisiting of the brand. There’ll be another one along in due course, though just at present I’ve misplaced 1377…
We had guests yesterday, and we’re also fostering a pair of kittens over Christmas. so it’s rather late in the weekend for the update. But there’ll still be time for you to tackle the Christmas Day Cryptic Jumbo on The Times website. And if you miss that, there are still two of my puzzles before the end of the year: Thursday December 30 for this week’s Independent (it seemed unfair to bag both Christmas and New Year’s Eves) and December 31 for a Church Times puzzle. There are also two Times puzzles before the next update: January 7 for a Quick Cryptic, and January 11 for the full 15×15.
Update after reassessing my handwriting: the full 15×15 is on 17 January.
See you in 2022. Happy New Year.
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