Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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Toughie No 3729 by Chalicea
Hints and tips by Whybird
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BD Rating – Difficulty */** – Enjoyment ***
Welcome to another Toughie Week.
For once I managed to Guess the Setter, so started with a win, and the North went in fairly rapidly. However, Chalicea has thrown a couple of curve balls today that had me scrabbling around to check both existence and meaning, and I also came up with what I thought was a reasonable answer for 27a which, being incorrect, made the SW trickier. I particularly liked 1a, 4d, 6a, 13a 28a and 30a but I’m giving my Gold Medal position to 16d.
Thank you, Chalicea, for an enjoyable start to the week.
Please let us know how you fared and what you thought of the puzzle.
I am taking a brief sabbatical for the next couple of weeks in an attempt to catch up with some “glorified seagulls”. Next week, you will have Gazza and the following week ALP, so thanks to both for filing in.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** Enjoyment ***/****
I found today’s Anthony Plumb offering maybe a tad trickier than yesterday’s puzzle chiefly because the definition context at 1&23d needed a bit of a crumpet scratch. As ever it was very enjoyable, nicely clued throughout & with some neat surfaces. I look forward to hearing what others make of it. I’m off to play ⛳️ so hopefully (no promises) no amendments need to be made to the hints below.
I see Chalicea is over in t’other place so that is guaranteed to be an enjoyable puzzle & well worth having a stab at. Whybird will be delighted to hear your thoughts on it.
As usual there is a selection of music to enjoy or ignore.
In the hints below the definition element of each clue has been underlined, anagrams are CAPITALISED & the crossword technique “indicator words” are in brackets. The answers are concealed under the Click Here buttons. Please leave a comment below telling us what you thought & how you got on with the puzzle.
Hello. It was lovely to meet some of you in Birmingham on Saturday. Thank you to everybody who came, and especially those who bought me drinks that I didn’t manage to reciprocate. And commiserations to those who’d hoped to be there but couldn’t make it.
Here’s a character I found lazing around at New Street station, presumably tired out from celebrating their 75th birthday. Please see my album of photos from the day for who else was there.
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Quite a long and involved preamble and a solution requiring multiple steps. You’ll probably need to set aside a chunk of time to crack this – not to mention the entire perimeter is just four clued (12) lights.… Continue reading
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A very good Sunday morning from Winnipeg. Recall that four weeks ago I introduced the concept of ‘a ‘run’ of three ‘close together’ blogging milestones for me’; well, today is the second of those milestones my 400th Dada Sunday blog. However, only 99.5% perfect as, including today, there have been 402 Dada Sunday puzzles altogether, starting with the horror of ST 2978 on November 18th, 2018, with Crypticsue and Shabbo subbing for me once each,.
For me, and I stress for me,© Dada very friendly with two long ‘uns, four anagrams (one partial), one lurker, and two(?) homophones, all in a very asymmetric 28 clues; with 14 hints ‘sprinkled’ throughout the grid, all BRB verified where necessary, you should/might be able to get some of the checkers to enable the solving of the unhinted clues. I hope you have your Crimson Tomes at hand!
Remember that Reading the Hints before commenting can be beneficial!
If it is some time since you read, or if you have never read the instructions in RED below the hints then please consider doing so before commenting today as my electronic blue pencil is at the ready and the Naughty Step is OPEN!
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BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment *****