Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
It’s typical, isn’t it? You wait ages for a Busman to turn up and then two come along in quick succession. This one provided the usual smooth comfortable ride with no hold-ups en route.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Sundays are the highlight of my crosswording week and so it is no hardship at all to stand in for Gnomey while he is on his hols. My top favourites in this particular fine example of a Virgilius puzzle were 15a, 17a, 26a, and 27a.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Ottawa where spring seems slow to arrive this year. One may even still see the odd isolated pile of snow in some well-sheltered locations.
This is a DNRT (Definitely Not Ray T) puzzle. I also found it to be a difficult puzzle to rate. To start with, the difficulty level of clues seems to range all over the map. I have set the difficulty at three stars, but some of the British terms may have caused me more difficulty than they will you. I also found it a bit tedious to review — especially the down clues where one encounters charade after charade after charade. I hadn’t particularly noticed this while solving the puzzle as I typically find myself tackling clues in a random order. I tried not to let this factor influence my rating, and gave it three stars for enjoyment as I felt that I had enjoyed the solving experience more than the blogging experience.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Notabilis has absconded from his usual Friday slot this week and given us a proper midweek Toughie, not as tricky as he can be but still a very enjoyable workout.
Continue reading “Toughie 967”
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Another straightforward and enjoyable puzzle from Jay. A 2*/3* for difficulty/enjoyment for me. Thanks to Jay.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Kcit’s puzzles are seldom difficult, but this was a tad more so than most. What doesn’t change is the enjoyment level.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Good morning from South Staffs on a beautiful sunny morning, where catching up on the gardening awaits when blogging duties are done. Happy St George’s Day to you all.
I found this a reasonably gentle puzzle, with the added bonus of a pangram (and the Quick Crossword is a pangram, too).
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment ***
First of all, many thanks for the birthday wishes that were posted yesterday. Secondly this seemed to be a very straight forward crossword this morning, probably due to the large number of anagrams. So I don’t expect many people will need to use the hints.
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Congratulations to Pete Cohen who was the winner of this month’s prize of one of Hamlyn’s Telegraph Puzzle Books [Pete has declined the prize, which will be carried over to the may competition. BD]. His name was drawn from the electronic ‘hat’ by Mrs BD as he was one of the solvers who had correctly spotted all the excuses (6d’s) that are used for travel delays (listed at the end of the review) – our Prolixic being a person who commutes to work by train, I am sure he has heard these many more times than he would like!
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As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the more difficult clues and provide hints for them.