Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****/*****
Good morning. A hugely entertaining puzzle filled with elegant and witty surfaces, a wide variety of clue-types, and a nice balance of straight definitions and less obvious ones. Continue reading “DT 30229”
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Good morning. I thought this was great fun, with some very tight clueing and clever deceptions. It seemed that for every solution that went in fairly quickly, there was another that held me up for longer than normal, particularly in the top half, a sign of a testing but fair challenge. Many thanks to the setter. Continue reading “DT 30223”
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Good morning. A nice variety of devices, a few relatively simple clues, and some knottier ones produced a challenge that was good fun to rise to. Of the ones that took the longest to solve, 22a held out to the end – guessable, but took me a while to parse. Many thanks to the setter, and kudos for the topical 21d. Continue reading “DT 30217”
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Good morning. A very playful puzzle, beautifully constructed with some interconnecting clues, amusing anagrams, a handful of pretty easy ones, and some where a little head-scratching and perhaps lateral thinking were required. Many thanks to the setter. Continue reading “DT 30211”
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BD Rating – Difficulty **/*** – Enjoyment ****
Good morning. A nice mix of relatively straightforward clues and a few having more complicated wordplay requiring more thought added up to an enjoyable challenge.… Continue reading
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****/*****
Good morning. Fantastic fun, a puzzle with some lovely anagrams and clever cryptic definitions and a selection of other clue types executed with wit and panache. So enjoyable. Continue reading “DT 30199”
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Good morning. An entertaining mix of clues, mostly of moderate difficulty, with a handful of outliers either on the easy side or needing a bit more thought. Continue reading “DT 30193”
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Good morning, and a Happy New Year to you from West Wales. Thank you to Senf for sitting in for me (among others) last week.
I found today’s back-pager tremendous fun all round with no major hold-ups. Any pauses for thought were generally the result of some elegantly disguised splits between wordplay and definition, executed with great skill here. Continue reading “DT 30187”
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BD Rating – Difficulty **/*** – Enjoyment ****
Good morning. A puzzle with a widely varying degree of difficulty for me: a few early write-ins, many that required a few pauses to eliminate the possibilities, and a handful at the end that I had to think long and hard about. Continue reading “DT 30175”
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BD Rating – Difficulty */** – Enjoyment ***/****
Good morning. A jokey, playful puzzle today that was good fun to solve, and which I suspect will go down nicely for most. Continue reading “DT 30169”