Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
BD Rating – Difficulty ***/**** – Enjoyment ***
Another fine offering from Prolixic, albeit one I found at the more difficult side both to solve and to work out the explanations for the review. I definitely think he’s getting tougher but his puzzles are still very entertaining. My favourite in this one is 5d for the laugh-out-loud-at-the-vision-it-created.
BD Rating – Difficulty */** – Enjoyment ***
After two weeks of puzzles with messages and themes, Virgilius returns to a straightforward yet beautifully crafted example of a Sunday prize puzzle. Didn’t take me long but I did enjoy myself, my top favourite being 19d although my ‘also-rans’ are highlighted in blue too.
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Apologies for the delay in reviewing but I had assumed that Prolixic would be doing his usual duty and only remembered in the early hours this morning that he was on his holidays. I feel the best way to recommend this great Gazza puzzle is to copy what I said to him when I test solved it “This is without doubt the best crossword I have solved today (I would even go so far as to say for several days)…. It has just the right amount of brain-stretching, d’oh moments and some really great clues.” I hope you all enjoyed it too.
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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’!!
