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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Yes, I was surprised as this is not a bad puzzle. A few minor quibbles, but overall a big improvement on recent crosswords from this setter.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
A fellow blogger (not BD) sent me an email describing this puzzle as “utter tripe”. I wouldn’t quite go that far. I agree that technically it’s not very good but I found it a pleasant enough solve. Maybe it’s because I’m partial to tripe that I’m being generous and awarding it 3* (rather than 2*) for enjoyment. I have now blogged 9 Excalibur puzzles and have given 7 of them 3* for enjoyment. Other bloggers have blogged a total of about 35 Excalibur puzzles and have never awarded more than 2* for enjoyment. What do other people think of them?
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
If you’ve solved an Excalibur puzzle before then you will know what to expect, so there is little I can add.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment *
No comment from me, but please feel free to leave your own comment telling us what you thought. You can also add your assessment by selecting from one to five stars at the bottom of the post.
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment **
When I found out last night that my task today was to review an Excalibur puzzle I wasn’t too disappointed because I thought that her previous one was pretty good. Sadly, this one isn’t! It’s nowhere near Toughie standard and many of the clues are weak (this is not helped by the grid having no less than fourteen four-letter words).
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment *
Today marks 25 years of crosswords like this by, and I quote, “one of the stars of the crossword world“.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
Well, there’s one example of a weird surface (22a) and a couple of cryptic definitions which don’t work very well in my opinion, but on the whole I thought this one was pretty reasonable if not too stimulating. It’s not terribly difficult – I completed three-quarters of it in almost record time but then slowed down in the NW corner, so I think this setter definitely belongs to Tuesdays rather than Wednesdays (Puzzles Editor please note) – perhaps a swap with Beam would be in order?
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment *
Same old grid, same old clues, same old …….
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
What a difference 24 hours makes. Yesterday I had a superb cryptic puzzle to blog and today I have a Toughie which (how can I say this without offending?) lacks sparkle. You may agree or you may have found it dazzling and stimulating – in either case give us your view in a comment.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment **
This was a game of two halves for me, with the bottom half going in fairly quickly but the top half holding out for some time. Excalibur’s puzzles tend to polarise opinions – although this one has some clues which I don’t like much (15a and 23a, for example) others are fine.
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