Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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BD Rating – Difficulty **/*** – Enjoyment ****
A Virgilius crossword with four fourteen letter clues always appears to take longer to sort out than most, but actually it didn’t take that long to solve at all.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Good morning from a storm-ravaged Devon – the weather has got steadily worse since John Kettley retired!
I enjoyed this Osmosis Toughie (in spite of the two animals which I had to work out from the wordplay and then look up) although I didn’t like 20a. The enumeration helped a lot with the four peripheral English towns but I imagine that these caused a few difficulties for solvers abroad.
Continue reading “Toughie 1131”
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment ***
I’d rate a 1* for difficulty, but still enjoyable with a 3*. Thanks to Jay.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
Greetings from the Locarno Ballroom in Carlisle. Ginger and I are doing the Not Totally Strictly Come Dancing Tour with the lookalikes Ben Goodman, Darcey Mussels, Craig Kenwood Mixer and Bruno Ravioli. Non-stop dancing and very little champagne makes us very grumpy. So we decided to sit down and tackle today’s Toughie by Excalibur. Probably just what we needed, a typical gentle Tuesday workout rather than the Friday beasts we are used to. Nothing terribly demanding but it passed a pleasant coffee break.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
This is a pretty standard puzzle for Tuesdays these days. There’s nothing too difficult or too exciting and it has a fairly high number of anagrams (nine by my reckoning). Do let us know what you thought.
Continue reading “DT 27404”
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment **
How jolly nice of Rufus to take us to two countries, where we could take part in an extreme sport and watch a musical which would make us tearful. He also threw in some food close to the halfway point. All of which made for a pleasant solve
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There’s a new monthly Prize Puzzle with a very special prize
In response to a number of requests, I have added a page, The Usual Suspects, to the Crosswords section of the blog. This lists some of the wordplay elements commonly used in cryptic crosswords. I hope it proves to be useful, especially to newer solvers.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a number of the more difficult clues and provide hints for them.
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There’s a new prize Puzzle available today. You are strongly advised to read the instructions thoroughly before entering.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, an assortment of clues, including some of the more difficult ones, have been selected and hints provided for them.
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Why not have a go at our latest Monthly Prize Puzzle? The winner will receive a copy of The Telegraph Centenary Crossword Collection, kindly donated by Phil McNeill, the Telegraph Puzzles Editor, and signed by Phil and six of the Telegraph setters who are featured in the book (Elgar, Roger Squires/Rufus, Micawber, Peter Chamberlain/Cephas, Notabilis and Don Manley/Giovanni). Yes, I blagged two copies off Phil McNeill so you have a second chance to win one!
Please note that, due to punitive postal charges, while the competition is open to all, the prize is only available to UK solvers.
A review will follow after the closing date (15th February 2014).