Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
A slightly trickier than usual offering from the Saturday Mysteron this week which caused problems for quite a few posters (and quite a few lurkers too judging by the number of visits to the hints page). Analysis for this review has revealed lots to make me smile and I have highlighted my favourites in blue.
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment ***
This Saturday’s puzzle from Cephas was one of those where everything fell into place so quickly (hence the 1* difficulty from me, although I do appreciate that others would rate it ** or even ***) that I didn’t have a chance to properly enjoy the wordplay at the time, so it was lucky for me that it was my turn to unravel the clues for the review.
BD Rating – Difficulty **/*** – Enjoyment ***
Well this one certainly divided the blog posters on Sunday. We either thought it was straightforward or tricky, the latter ‘camp’ finding the right hand side being particularly slow in penny-dropping moments. I was in the ‘tricky’ corner but having now gone through all the wordplay for this review, I am not entirely sure why.
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Thanks once again to Virgilius for a superb start to Sunday – the crossword didn’t take that long to solve, so it was great to have time to enjoy the clues for a second time in order to prepare this review. Some of my favourite clues are marked in blue.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
The Saturday Mysteron once again produced one of their crosswords where it seemed to take ages for the pennies to drop and the clues to be solved, but, in the end, everything fell into place in my usual Saturday solving time. Thanks once again to the Mysteron for a nice Prize Puzzle – my favourite clues are marked in blue.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
A lovely Saturday puzzle from 23a this week, proving once again that a cryptic can be fairly straightforward to solve without detracting in any way from the level of enjoyment it gives the solver. Thanks Cephas for the Saturday morning entertainment – I bet 23a was your clue of the day too. My favourites are highlighted in blue.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
If you solve your cryptics in the newspaper or were able to convince the Telegraph Puzzles website to cooperate, then like me you had a lovely treat of a crossword from Virgilius again this week. The top half went in quite quickly but the bottom half was another story, particularly the SW corner where I was held up by several of the craftier clues. As to my favourite clues – as Brucie might say ‘they’re nearly all my favourites’!!
Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
I test-solved this crossword back in the April heat wave, but according to my notes at the time, I solved it in a deckchair in the hot sunny garden, found the top easier than the bottom and, with only a couple of queries, enjoyed the crossword very much.
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.
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Thank you once again to Virgilius for the usual splendid Sunday challenge, which didn’t take me long to solve but was, as we have come to expect, very enjoyable. My favourite clue, 13a, is worth 5* on its own. I also really liked the linking of the down clues 1 and 22; 2 and 19; 6 and 16; and 7 and 21.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
This week our Mystery Setter gave us a very enjoyable, albeit not very time-consuming, Saturday prize puzzle. Thank you to him (?) once again from us all for an entertaining Saturday diversion, particularly me as the quick solve left more time to deal with our strawberry ‘mountain’ – more jam anyone??
