Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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The ‘casting of the sacred runes’ (thank you Mrs BD) has resulted in a second MPP win for Pegasus – congratulations to him. He wins a choice of Telegraph Puzzle Books from Hamlyn. All we had to do was find all the hidden money in the grid and add it up to get the sum of £1,633.01 – if you didn’t get the right total, all is revealed at the end of the review.
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Why not have a go at our latest Monthly Prize Puzzle?
The winner will receive their choice of any of the Telegraph Crossword Books published by Hamlyn.
Please note that, due to punitive postal charges, while the competition is open to all, the prize is only available to UK solvers.
A review will follow after the closing date (17th January 2015).
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Why not have a go at our latest Monthly Prize Puzzle?
The winner will receive their choice of any of the Telegraph Crossword Books published by Hamlyn.
Please note that, due to punitive postal charges, while the competition is open to all, the prize is only available to UK solvers.
A review will follow after the closing date (18th October 2014).
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Congratulations to Keith Williams who was the winner of this month’s prize puzzle who wins a copy of Tim Moorey’s book. Keith correctly deciphered the instructions set for the solver. Eight of the across clues omitted a letter from the wordplay which, when added, gave the definition. For these eight clues, the wordplay also gave a word in its own right linked to 16a. Having found the solutions, the eight missing letters could be rearranged to give another example of a 16a.
The answer to 16a was flower. Each of the eight clues produced the name of a river (flower) which, with the additional letters added gave the solution words. Those eight letters could be rearranged to give the answer MARIGOLD (a botanical rather than a cryptic flower).
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Why not have a go at our latest Monthly Prize Puzzle? The winner will receive a copy of The Times ~ How to Crack Cryptic Crosswords kindly donated by its author, Tim Moorey.
Please note that, due to punitive postal charges, while the competition is open to all, the prize is only available to UK solvers.
A review will follow after the closing date (19th July 2014).
Reviewed by Prolixic
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The instructions for this crossword told us that “Radler tried to construct a puzzle with all 26 letters around its perimeter. Unfortunately he didn’t quite succeed. However, after solving the puzzle you may notice that if he had replaced one of the answers with an anagram of itself, he would have achieved his aim. What is the word he ought to have used?” The denouement is at the end of the review.
Congratulations to StanXYZ whose name was drawn from the electronic hat. He wins not only a Hamlyn Telegraph Crossword Book of his choice but also congratulations from the runners up.
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Why not have a go at our latest Monthly Prize Puzzle? The winner will receive their choice of any of the Telegraph Crossword Books published by Hamlyn.
Please note that, due to punitive postal charges, while the competition is open to all, the prize is only available to UK solvers.
A review will follow after the closing date (15th March 2014).
Reviewed by Prolixic
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Congratulations to Crypticsue for correctly solving and answering the question in this month’s prize puzzle. For the avoidance of doubt, this was one of the prize puzzles that she did not test solve so she was free to enter the competition.
As prize puzzles go, this was as tough as they come requiring solvers to be fluent in four languages. Radler pulled no punches when setting this one! Well done to all who correctly solved it.
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Why not have a go at our latest Monthly Prize Puzzle? The winner will receive their choice of any of the Telegraph Crossword Books published by Hamlyn.
Please note that, due to punitive postal charges, while the competition is open to all, the prize is only available to UK solvers.
A review will follow after the closing date (21st December 2013).
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The sacred runes have been expertly cast by Mrs BD and the lot has fallen on Nick Hubbard as the lucky winner of the September Monthly Prize Puzzle. He correctly identified that the crossword produced by Radler omitted sixteen occurrences of the letter Z from the wordplay and that the answers to 1, 5, 11 and 13 across asked us to identify the number of times the letter Z was used in the solutions.
Explanations for the answers are given below.