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)
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BD Rating - Difficulty **** - Enjoyment ***
Hello, everyone. Its Friday, so we expect a puzzle that’s more challenging that those offered in the past few days, and that’s what we’ve been given. I was not on the right wavelength today, so it took longer than normal to get everything slotted into the grid and then parsed. Continue reading "DT 30514"
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BD Rating - Difficulty *** - Enjoyment ***
Hello, everyone, and welcome to a Friday puzzle that I found more straightforward than recent offerings in this slot. . Continue reading "DT 30508"
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BD Rating - Difficulty *** - Enjoyment ***
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the first Friday of 2024. Today’s enjoyable puzzle uses all letters except X in the grid fill, which suggests that it’s the work of regular Friday setter proXimal. Good fun, and I found the difficulty level about right for a Friday. Continue reading "DT 30502"
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BD Rating - Difficulty **** - Enjoyment **
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the last Friday of 2023, which means that today is the day for me to wish all members of the BD community a very Happy New Year. I thought that today’s puzzle resided at the more difficult end of the Friday spectrum, with several clues requiring some head-scratching and pondering to work out the parsing. It’s one of those puzzles where I schedule the blog at bedtime worrying that I’ve got some explanations wrong. I look forward to hearing what others thought of it. Continue reading "DT 30496"
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BD Rating - Difficulty **** - Enjoyment ***
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the last Friday before the 25th of December, which means that I should today wish everyone a Merry Christmas! Continue reading "DT 30490"
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BD Rating - Difficulty **** - Enjoyment ***
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Friday. I had another very late start to solving and blogging today, so I’m afraid that there wasn’t time to look for pics. I will try to do better next week. Continue reading "DT 30484"
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BD Rating - Difficulty *** - Enjoyment ***
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Friday. . Continue reading "DT 30478"
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BD Rating - Difficulty *** - Enjoyment ***
Hello, everyone, and welcome to a solid Friday puzzle with a grid that uses every letter in the alphabet except X. Continue reading "DT 30472"
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BD Rating - Difficulty *** - Enjoyment ****
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Friday. On this side of the pond, it’s not just any Friday. No, as the day after Thanksgiving, it’s Black Friday, the start of the holiday shopping season and a time for some people to camp out all night to score a bargain-priced big screen TV that they could have just ordered off Amazon. Black Friday is followed by Cyber Monday, which I thought was a totally made-up thing to get us to buy computers and software. Continue reading "DT 30466"
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BD Rating - Difficulty **** - Enjoyment ****
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Friday. Befitting the day, I thought that this was the toughest back pager of the week. I’d like to say that I solved it smoothly and unaided, but that would be a lie, because in one or two places I had to make use of the Chambers Dictionary app on my phone. Lots of cleverness in the clues led to many penny drop moments and an above average enjoyment rating. Continue reading "DT 30460"