Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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Michael Curl, a setter on a setter for The Times, The Guardian and the Financial Times, has just added an excellent Who’s Who of Crosswordland to his “Best for Puzzles” site. … Continue reading
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Welcome to the thirty first in our series of weekly puzzles.
This week’s puzzle is from our very own Tilsit, with help from Prolixic.
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Regular followers of the blog may have seen a comment from Brian Greer, the setter of the Sunday Telegraph Crossword, for a meet while he was in London. This has now been arranged for 2.00pm on Sunday, 3rd October at the Bree Louise in Euston. Fuller details will be published nearer the date.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from the Calder Valley and a really ferocious Toughie to close the week. I have to admit this was quite a struggle and I think that had I not been on blogging duties today, this may well have been put in my “revisit later” puzzle, which rarely gets accessed.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
No &lits/all-in-ones today, but a few clues of particular kinds that we expect from this setter.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
I thought that this was quite a stiff test from Giovanni today, though a lot of my difficulty was of my own making since I initially wrote in “crab” for 12a and so could get nowhere with 5d. As always, we appreciate all comments from solvers.
If you’re stuck for an answer, you’ll find them hidden between the curly brackets – just drag your cursor through the space between the brackets to reveal one.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Trickier than I expected for a Busman toughie but no real problems understanding the clues except for 23 down which I really had to think about.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Afternoon All!. This week we had what I considered a great puzzle from Cephas. It contained all his usual hallmarks, including some great cryptic definitions, some well constructed charades and one barely cryptic definition as well!. The enjoyment for me came from this,the range of definitions and also the fact that the less well known words were well constructed so there was no doubt that the answer arrived at was, in fact, the correct one.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Thursday has become Mystery Setter day, and this is yet another one. Relatively easy, with some nice touches.
Please 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 *****
To get an Elgar on a Wednesday is a bit of a surprise and a real treat. The puzzle is packed full of inventive and witty clues and I loved it.
Your comments, as always, are welcome and please remember to click on one of the stars below to show how much you enjoyed it.