Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Last week I asked for more of the same, and Jed has done just that. I found it a little easier than last weeks puzzle, but just as enjoyable.
A full analysis of this puzzle will be available at 12.00 next Friday, 10th July. Continue reading “ST 2491 – Hints”
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
First I’d like to say a special thank you to Gazza for stepping in to help me out yesterday. It all started when I switched the computer on yesterday morning, only to find that the graphics card had given up the ghost. I did eventually manage to find a very old one, but that card didn’t know what a wide screen looked like. Off to PC World where I had to buy a new motherboard, cpu, and memory to accommodate the new graphics card. At this point the hard drive crashed for the third time in as many months, so it was back again for a new drive. By the time that I had reloaded Windows and found out that the new graphics card was faulty it was nearly midnight. Fortunately I was able to use the onboard graphics controller, so I’m able to do this morning’s blog.
A much better puzzle this week from our Saturday Supremo. There is a village, but it has an indelible place in British history.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them. Peter Biddlecombe is on holiday this week, but a full review of this puzzle will still be published at 12.00 on Thursday, 9th July.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
There have been a lot of good Sunday puzzles recently, and this was another. Sorry for the late appearance of this review, but I’m still sorting out Friday morning’s computer crash.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
Apologies for the late posting of this review. Big Dave normally does the Friday Toughie but he has suffered a catastrophic hardware failure and cannot get on-line, so I’ve done a quick mini write-up in his place. He also asked me to apologise for the late arrival of his full review of last Sunday’s puzzle – he’ll post it as soon as he is able.
As for today’s effort, I found it more irritating than satisfying – but there were a couple of clues I liked.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
Not sure about this crossword, maybe I got out of the wrong side of bed this morning, but I personally felt that this was somewhat 16a. and is only rescued by 18a. Comments appreciated as always.
Continue reading “DT 25971”
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
A pretty easy puzzle, which will have disappointed those who want a bit more to chew over on a Saturday. In its favour, the surface readings are nearly all convincing. The grid seems to be a direct match of a Times one, dreamt up by their former xwd editor Edmund Akenhead, with a big black E as a “signature”. It’s now a bit eccentric at the Times – their only grid with any fully checked answers – but much better than some of the DT ones.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
As the warm-up man for Big Dave and his battle with Excalibur tomorrow, I am usually full of praise for the Thursday setters. I am also a big fan of Firefly in his other setting alias, but for some reason, this is just not my cup of coffee (I can’t stand tea!!). I was quite looking forward to it, but just found that some of the clues lacked the invention and difficulty that we normally get from him.
For some reason I am reminded of the end of an epsiode of The Simpsons, where they do a send-up of Stephen King’s The Shining. I had a tough night last night with the heat and lack of air, despite having all the windows open and running the risk of bats flying in. However, I was looking forward to logging in and having a good battle today, but like Homer I was disappointed and the urge to kill rises…..(actually the urge to go and have a snooze rises!)
ARVE Error: need id and provider
Anyway, enough whimsy, let’s go. My basic feeling that this was probably no tougher than a normal daily puzzle. I was quite convinced for some time that there was a mistake in the grid, but then my recent stays as a guest of the NHS came to the rescue. Should Toughie puzzles have four letter anagrams? Continue reading “Toughie 174”
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Nothing too taxing today, but a pleasant challenge with a lot of nice surface readings.
As usual the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets – just select the white space to reveal them.
Continue reading “DT 25970”
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
There’s a saying “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it”, so all of us who complained yesterday that the Toughie was far too easy and that we wanted something tougher, have had our wish granted today. This one was a struggle from start to finish, with some obscure words and tricky wordplay. I really enjoyed the challenge.
Continue reading “Toughie 173”
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
A bit like last Wednesday, this is a pleasant puzzle that shouldn’t unduly trouble the average solver.