Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
As you probably expected, your Sunday setter took full advantage of the puzzle appearing on Valentine’s day. Every clue is about romance, and so are many answers.
Continue reading “ST 2523”
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Probably my fastest TT solve ever until I reached the very last clue (thanks to BD for helping out). I’m not quite sure why the solve was so quick because, looking back through the clues again, I think there are some quite tricky bits; in fact there are some answers I placed without full understanding of the wordplay, so this review might just contain a few um-ah-er moments. We’ll see.
Easy as it was, it was still enjoyable. A couple of surface readings look less than convincing but I’m very biased in having that area of clueing as the main thing I aim for when writing. To many solvers it’s not that important.
As is my wont, favourite clues are in blue.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought, and add your assessment of the puzzle by selecting from one to five stars at the bottom of the post.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
You may have gathered that Giovanni is not exactly flavour of the week on parts of this site, but he invariably produces exceedingly good puzzles, and this one is well up there. Let us know in a comment whether you enjoyed it as much as I did.
For new readers, the answer to each clue is hidden in the curly brackets under the clue. Drag your cursor through the white space between the brackets to reveal it.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
It’s always worth checking the Saturday Prize puzzle to see if a pangram (all 26 letters of the alphabet) is in the offing. As soon as you spot two or three of the letters J, Q, V, X and Z then there is a good chance that, like today, the others may be lurking in the undergrowth. This was a pleasant puzzle and the improvements, over the year that we have been writing reviews, has been noticeable. As ever my complaint is that I, and many others, would prefer a more difficult puzzle.
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Phil McNeill, the Telegraph Puzzles editor, has sent me both of today’s puzzles in pdf format and has kindly given permission for me to publish them here on the blog. These files are exactly as published in the paper, incuding the Quick crossword and yesterday’s answers.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *
This is the worst Giovanni puzzle that I can remember.
Leave a 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 **
Its general knowledge cryptic crossword time again. An interesting, if not overly complicated puzzle which on reflection wasn’t too bad, but I can’t get excited about it. There are as usual a few issues which I have highlighted in the blog.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought of todays crossword.
If you highlight the area between the curly brackets you can reveal the full answer.
Continue reading “DT 26167”
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
I didn’t think that this Toughie was especially difficult, in spite of being held up for a while in the top right-hand corner. It does have a couple of sporting references, one football and one rugby, that may cause some problems, and I do have niggles with a few of the clues.
As always, we’d love to get your views.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Jay’s puzzles are probably those that fit the Telegraph genus best. Seldom difficult, often amusing, occasionally irritating, but always fair. As Libellule has commented previously, each one does precisely what it says on the can!
Leave a 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 ***
Like Mr Kipling, Busman produces exceedingly good puzzles, but are they tough enough to labelled Toughies? A quick look at the comments on today’s offering from Ray T would suggest not.
By the way, NTSPP-001 has now been reinstated. Many thanks to Mike “Eimi” Hutchinson for his hard work in ensuring that any possible legal hurdles were cleared.
Leave a 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.