Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
Quite an enjoyable start to the week with some very good cryptic definitions, which are the hallmarks of the Monday Maestro. However, there are a couple of not-so-good ones, which is a shame, otherwise this would have been a real quality puzzle.
As usual, your comments are appreciated.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
Unless you know different, as a woman with big teeth used to say on TV, today’s Toughie breaks new ground. I don’t think that crosswords in the DT have had more than one or two cross-referencing clues. Today’s had quite a few and that added to the fun. Obviously you had to solve these to proceed further with other clues.
This was a Toughie to savour and it had everything including some absolutely top-drawer clues. My only tiny grumble was that where answers were linked – like 22, 10 and 23, 2 down, in other publications the complete indications are shown at the first answer. It just confused me a little.
Where to start? Probably with the three letter answers. They are quite good ways to get into the puzzles with quite friendly clues.
What did you think about it? Feel free to comment after the analysis.
The clue answers are contained within the curly brackets. Highlighting the space between them will reveal the answer. If you are posting a comment for the first time, there may be a slight delay while your first post is approved. This is purely a precaution against the board being hijacked by spammers.
On with the motley and let’s go!
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment **
Thanks to Big Dave for helping out last Thursday when my PC and laptop got the equivalent of man flu. Now working again, I was happy to swap duties and tackle today’s challenge from Excalibur. I know that this particular setter’s work hasn’t been well-received round these parts, so I tried to tackle this with an open mind. I have spent about four hours wrestling with this puzzle today and although I consider myself a reasonable solver, some of the clues just defeated me completely.
When I tackle a tough challenge (like last Saturday’s Independent Prize Puzzle which was by another Toughie setter), I normally have a sense of achievement. However, I just didn’t get that with today’s, I’m sad to report.
There are some clever and interesting clues, but there are also one or two that don’t make sense. The overall puzzle is not helped by the grid itself, which means that you only get help from clues within that corner. I was lucky to solve the four ten-letter answers, but it didn’t offer me any help with the top right corner and I was staring at a completely blank corner for over two hours.
The best way I can decribe a few of the clues is to say that in archery terms they hit the outer bull, rather than the inner bull. When I compile my puzzles, I aim to ensure my clues are precise and hit the inner bull every time, I just felt that a couple here didn’t achieve that.
Let’s take a look at today’s clues, then. I am afraid there are a couple where my explanation may seem vague, and if you can help make sense of them, please feel free to comment. As usual, new posters may take a little while for their first posts to appear, this is purely a precaution against spammers gumming the board up.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from the Calder Valley. Quite a challenging and enjoyable puzzle from our Monday Maestro today. Not as easy as the past few weeks with a few clues to cause more than a little head scratching. Lots of good surface reading and a preponderance of double definition clues today.
The topic for debate today concerns the clue at 28 across. I often feel that crosswords are stuck in a sort of time warp of the late fifties/early sixties. Some setters try to write clues that reflect modern usage (and abusage) of phrases, but a few, and this runs from today’s setter through to the Araucarias of this world) sometimes use words or devices that are strictly of a period.
If you asked a younger person what a “cosh” was, would they know? To me, it’s a word that belongs with The Great Train Robbers and 1950’s Teddy Boys. I also accept that I may be wrong, and I’d like your thoughts. I don’t think the day is far off where the newer abbreviations, such as LOL and IMHO will start appearing as indicators as part of clues. What do you think? Let me know at the end. Newer posters please remember that your first posts has to be approved, to prevent spamming, but you’ll be on the board fairly quickly.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *** – (CluedUp Site Difficulty **************)
Very irritating today. Not the puzzle, but the blooming CluedUp website. I logged in to do the puzzle and finished it, and was chugging along writing the blog. Funnily enough at the time I thought that it didn’t feel like a Messinae puzzle. Visited this lovely site and then saw Gazza’s blog on the same puzzle! Checked in to Clued-Up again and got a different puzzle!
So we start again, a bit late! This was a really nice puzzle to solve (unlike his current fiendish Listener puzzle, which is a s*d!) and contains one of the best clues I have seen in a while. However I think there’s a problem with one of the other clues.
Off we go, let me have your thoughts below.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
Dateline: Hebden Bridge : Monday : 00:45
After a very pleasant birthday Sunday, I arrived home just after midnight full of bonhomie (sadly not alcohol) and at one with the world. So I logged on to Clued Up and, armed with a cup of coffee and Tracy Chapman on my speakers, set about the new challenge from our Monday Maestro.
Some minutes later I am waiting for Clued Up to decide whether I have completed the puzzle, although I am fairly certain I have it correct. Has my good humour survived? Let’s take a stroll round Across Street and Down Lane and see.
I have vented my spleen about the Telegraph Grids recently, so I shall say little about today’s abomination. There’s the usual smattering of cryptic definitions, and the usual odd one that stetches a point. I am sure I have seen the exact same clue at 5 down in a puzzle recently, so that is where I start.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
As the warm-up man for Big Dave and his battle with Excalibur tomorrow, I am usually full of praise for the Thursday setters. I am also a big fan of Firefly in his other setting alias, but for some reason, this is just not my cup of coffee (I can’t stand tea!!). I was quite looking forward to it, but just found that some of the clues lacked the invention and difficulty that we normally get from him.
For some reason I am reminded of the end of an epsiode of The Simpsons, where they do a send-up of Stephen King’s The Shining. I had a tough night last night with the heat and lack of air, despite having all the windows open and running the risk of bats flying in. However, I was looking forward to logging in and having a good battle today, but like Homer I was disappointed and the urge to kill rises…..(actually the urge to go and have a snooze rises!)
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
I made it home from the hospital, but haven’t felt much like solving over the weekend, so I have a large pile of puzzles to wade through. Whether it’s because I am out of sorts I can’t decide, but today’s puzzle irritated me more than pleased me. I hate grids that have only one way in and out of each corner and today’s was no exception. There does seem to be a large number of Telegraph grids that are not helpful to solvers, and it may be about time that a review was carried out of the grids. Similarly I hate ambiguous clues with a passion, and there’s one today at 25 across.
Overall, the clues are of the standard we expect from our Monday Maestro, but one or two are of the tooth-sucking variety, and I’ll mention those as we go along. Right, off we go….
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from the top floor of Calderdale Hospital where I am currently holidaying as a guest of the NHS. It’s 1am and it’s rather warm in here, since they seem to have forgotten to install air-conditioning. However one of the lovely nurses has brought me a nice cold glass of orange Juice. Thank you for all the kind wishes and I hope to be home sometime over the next few days.
After two fairly gentle puzzles so far this week, this really made me ramp up the thought processes, and we were treated to superlative stuff from Notabilis today. One or two of the clues (e.g. 1 across and down) were utterly fiendish and took me a while to decipher.
As usual, I welcome your thoughts and observations. New posters please note that there may be a slight delay before you see it; this is because we check new posts to protect you (and the site) from spammers.
Off we go….. Continue reading “Toughie 170”
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
A fairly entertaining challenge from Shamus, who always provides puzzles that are both fair and a reasonable test for solvers. I have to say I found this one a little easier than his usual challenges, but it did contaion things that made me reach for the Chambers.
Shamus is one of Azed’s band of solvers from the Observer every Sunday, and regularly appears in the prize winners for his monthly clue writing competition. Solvers may be interested to know that another of Azed’s band of regulars sadly passed away the other day. Dorothy Taylor, who was 98, had a rather particular claim to fame. Dorothy used to enter puzzles under her sister’s name Mrs B Lewis and her name was used, along with that of another eminent solver, Sir Jeremy Morse, by Colin Dexter, himself a regular Azed prizewinner. And so Morse and Lewis became famous.
[You can see a picture of Dorothy, with Sir Jeremy, in this post on Derek Harrison’s Crossword Message Board. The following entry in the same thread has a picture of her with Colin Dexter and Don (Giovanni) Manley . BD]