Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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Welcome to the latest in our series of weekly puzzles.
This week we have a puzzle from Retiarius, a new setter. If you are a follower of Fifteensquared he is one half of Handel, the team that used to blog Guardian and Independent on Sunday puzzles.
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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 ****
Thanks to Gnomethang for covering for me yesterday. I wondered what I was letting myself in for when offering to do Friday this week in view of the really tough toughies that Friday seems to throw up. In the event I got one that was probably above average difficulty but not a real stinker. It was a puzzle of four corners that I did in the order NE, NW, SE, SW. The key to the puzzle was 5 Ac 10 Ac which I got instantly. Of the varieties of 10 Ac used in the puzzle I had only heard of one (11 Ac) but the others were easily deduced from the anagrams.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Afternoon All!. We have an absolute belter of a Sunday puzzle from Virgilius this week with his usual hallmarks. This was my back page puzzle of the week. Continue reading “ST 2580”
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
We have the usual entertaining Friday puzzle from Giovanni. It seemed to send me down more wrong trails than usual – let me know what you thought in a comment.
If you want to see an answer highlight the space between the brackets under the clue.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Another good Saturday cryptic from our mystery setter this week. Took a few minutes for various pennies to drop, but I had no problems after that. Thank you to the Mysteron for a good mix of splendid clues, which I had the great pleasure of enjoying twice while sorting out this review.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Afternoon All!. A slight change around to the Toughie reviews. Bufo will be with you tomorrow having swapped with Tilsit who then kindly vacated the chair to let me have a go. There were some lovely clues here and some excellent surface readings as well as some ‘easy hit’ clues to get you started. Thanks to crypticsue for helping me with the wordplay in four clues. Continue reading “Toughie 533”
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from the Calder Valley. Yes, I’m up in Yorkshire staying with Tilsit for a couple of days. Tonight we are off to Manchester to the Guardian Extra presentation by new Toughie setter John Halpern, (Dada, Paul, Mudd, Punk).
Once again Thursday brings us a puzzle stamped with trademark Ray T clues.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
MynoT’s last Toughie was all about the colour red so I was expecting a different colour this time because he likes to do series of themes. In fact today’s theme colour gives us a strong hint that he is making his way through the colours of the spectrum in the standard order (indigo should be interesting). I found this one quite a bit easier than his usual Toughies – let us know what you think in a comment. I’ve marked with an asterisk all the clues which I think are related to the theme – if I’ve missed any, let me know.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Today we get a good solid offering from Jay (I presume), one which (if I may borrow a phrase) could be described as a Goldilocks puzzle – not too easy, not too hard, but perhaps just right (depending on how you like your porridge, of course). While there are no clues that really stand out, there are no stinkers either. However, there is a rather hearty serving of charades.