Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
Since the beginning of 2010, Wednesday’s regular setter is Jeremy Mutch who has visited the blog as Jay. During 2009, Jay set almost all the Thursday puzzles.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
If you enjoy charades, you’ll love this puzzle. At least 17 of the 28 clues involve this type of clue. I must say that it was far more enjoyable to solve than it was to create hints for. After all, there are only so many ways to describe a charade.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Jay consistently turns out Telegraph-quality puzzles, and this one is no exception.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Jay entertains us once again with a typical Telegraph-quality puzzle. I found this slightly easier than some recent Wednesday offerings.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Like Gazza yesterday, I wasn’t sure I enjoyed this much while I was solving it, particularly as I had quite a struggle with some clues, but having typed the review, I find it has grown on me. Thanks to Jay for a good Wednesday morning brain workout.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
I had a slight case of blogger’s nerves when I read the first few clues but soon settled down and thoroughly enjoyed Jay’s puzzle which has a very nice mix of clues including quite a few insertions and some very nice anagrams. Thanks to Jay for the very nice Wednesday work out – we do seem to be returning to the ‘old’ system where the difficulty increased on a daily basis with Friday being the ‘hardest’.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
This is the second occasion that I’ve had the honour to sit in the reviewer’s chair, so I am still a bit of a rookie – at least in this forum. Interestingly, the previous puzzle that I reviewed was DT 26346 and when Big Dave sent me DT 26364 this time, I had to do a double check to make sure I was working on the correct one.
Overall, I would say that this is a typical puzzle in terms of both difficulty and enjoyment. After quickly finding a starting point and making rapid progress through about half the puzzle, I felt that it would likely rate two stars for difficulty. However, the remainder of the puzzle proved more challenging and caused me to up my rating to three stars.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
The usual entertaining puzzle from Jay, although I do have a few minor niggles.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
Jay gave us a puzzle requiring quite a bit of thought which was a bit of a shock after three consecutive puzzles which took me no time at all – shame Other Dave wasn’t out of the office on Monday or Tuesday!! I didn’t notice when solving the puzzle but writing the review has made me realise that there is a slight leaning towards the United States today.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Welcome to the Wednesday blog. Before getting down to business, let me give you a brief background about myself. I am a retired engineer living in Ottawa, Canada as well as a relative newcomer to cryptic crosswords, having taken up the pastime (to which I quickly became addicted) only a couple of years ago, following my retirement. However, I do have a fairly solid foundation, having been a longtime solver of regular crossword puzzles. Furthermore, my training has been greatly accelerated by closely following a number of British cryptic crossword sites, in particular, this one.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
There’s little more I can say about Jay’s puzzles. Just enjoy solving this one.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought. You can also add your assessment by selecting from one to five stars at the bottom of the post.