Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
Friday’s current setter is Don Manley who is also known as Giovanni, Duck, Pasquale, Quixote, and Bradman (all punningly connected with the name Don or Donald)
Toughie No 3324 by Osmosis
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
We know what to expect from Osmosis – clever wordplay, a dearth of anagrams and very nearly but not quite a pangram (only one letter missing this week as far as I can see). I enjoyed it a lot – thanks to our setter.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
Continue reading “Toughie 3324”
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BD Rating - Difficulty ** - Enjoyment ****
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Friday. I found today’s puzzle positioned at the easier end of the Friday spectrum. It was a lot of fun to solve, with nothing too chewy in the parsing. I hope that our setter will drop in later to take a bow. Continue reading "DT 30694"
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
Elgar provides a fitting tribute to his regular Toughie blogger, seeing the theme early allows me to reduce the difficulty one * but the enjoyment stays at the maximum
You could probably apply the 7d prefix to most words in this or any other crossword but I have highlighted as many as possible. I learned a lot about Marrowfat (8d) and the custom of giving bread to the king’s youngest child (6d) and my history knowledge of the events of 1924 has come on leaps and bounds (1a). This turophile is ashamed to have not fully parsed 29a pleased to have finally parsed 29a
The music links today are as near as I can find to those played at the Service of Celebration and Thanksgiving although Richard’s own recording of Always on my Mind is not available to me
The plethora of thematic elements were obvious highlights but 2d belongs on my podium too What were your favourites?
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BD Rating - Difficulty *** - Enjoyment ***
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Friday. I found today’s puzzle perfect for the Friday slot. It has tight grammar, smooth surfaces, and several smile-inducing penny drop moments. Continue reading "DT 30688"
Toughie No 3316 by Osmosis
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment ****
Osmosis has given us a proper Toughie with a lot of clever wordplay (which I really enjoyed working through). This time his puzzle is a full pangram with no missing letters.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
Continue reading “Toughie 3316”
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BD Rating - Difficulty **** - Enjoyment ***
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Friday. Complex wordplay and more head-scratching than usual for a Friday suggests that this nice puzzle might be the work of Zandio. While I found most of it about right for a Friday, parsing 4d pushed my total time into 4* difficulty territory. Continue reading "DT 30682"
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BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment *****
When Elgar sets a Friday Toughie, you get exactly what it says on the tin. The usual stretching of the cryptic grey matter followed by a lot of smiles as I worked out exactly what was going on in the clues
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BD Rating - Difficulty *** - Enjoyment ****
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Friday. I thought this was the best Friday puzzle for some time, with tight cryptic grammar and lots of penny drop moments. The use of every letter but X in the grid fill suggests that it’s the work of proXimal. Thanks to him for today’s entertainment. Continue reading "DT 30676"
Toughie No 3308 by Osmosis
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
Osmosis has taken a leaf out of Beam’s book and given us a very enjoyable anagram-less puzzle. Thanks to him.
There’s a lot of cleverness on view in the grid. For a start we have (almost) a double pangram – there are no Hs but two of them are visible in the make-up of the grid. Also, we only have a single W but we do have a couple of spare Us (i.e. a double-U). Finally, and I don’t know how significant this is, several pairs of the higher scoring Scrabble letters appear separated by a single letter in the four quadrants (i.e. going clockwise from top-left Q?Q, X?X, Z?Z and J?J).
Continue reading “Toughie 3308”
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BD Rating - Difficulty *** - Enjoyment ***
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Friday. It was a very long day in the lab today, so I’m afraid that once again I had no time to search for quality cat pics. However, since the commentariat did so well at providing pics last week, I’m hoping that readers will step up once again with suitable illustrations. Continue reading "DT 30670"
