Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
Hints and tips for completing Daily Telegraph Cryptic crosswords
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
This puzzle by Kcit is fine and enjoyable but doesn’t really warrant being called a Toughie. In my view it could easily have appeared on the back page.
Let us have your views and please take the time to click on one of the stars below to register your enjoyment.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Hola from the Vega Baja. Another excellent Wednesday puzzle today. On the whole it’s not too hard but it does have the usual 2 or 3 of a distinctly tricky nature. I’ve given it 2* for overall difficulty but if you want to disagree just put your own rating in a post and I’ll average them all as I did last week.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Just over two weeks I had the great pleasure of meeting Warbler and her husband – see photo on the blog’s facebook page. Today I have the great pleasure of reviewing one of her puzzles. Try to solve 24 across early on, as it is the key to several of the other answers.
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BD Rating – Difficulty */** – Enjoyment **
Today’s puzzle is pretty gentle, though I’d never heard “wild mare” used to mean the apparatus in 9a. Let us know how you got on with it.
If you want to reveal an answer just slide your cursor through the space between the curly brackets under the clue that’s causing you problems.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
An ideal introduction for new cryptic solvers from Rufus today. Fun but not too difficult.
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As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.
BD Rating – Difficulty ***/**** – Enjoyment ***
Another fine offering from Prolixic, albeit one I found at the more difficult side both to solve and to work out the explanations for the review. I definitely think he’s getting tougher but his puzzles are still very entertaining. My favourite in this one is 5d for the laugh-out-loud-at-the-vision-it-created.
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Welcome to the latest in our series of weekly puzzles.
This week we have another excellent puzzle from Prolixic!
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As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select an assortment of clues, including some of the more difficult ones, and provide hints for them.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from the Calder Valley! I’m demob-happy and off on my jollies to the Lakes tomorrow, and as I have to run around getting things sorted out for me to thrive up there, today’s blog will be a two-hander with BD helping out with the Downs. Thanks to our host for helping out when I realised there aren’t enough hours in the day.
Today we have a puzzle from Firefly which is similar to one I set in the NTSPP puzzle slot a while back in that it is based on a type of puzzle called Theme and Variations, where there is a theme, often not to be found in the puzzle and then a number of answers that relate to the theme in different ways, which means there’s usually no definition in those clues. These require a little solving readjustment as the clue as a whole is actually either made up of indications. And so it is here today with Firefly’s enjoyable puzzle which has eight answers where as you solve it you will find there are four that are one interpretation of the theme and the remainder another. I did spend a bit of time trying to put the answers into pairs as I solved them, but realised I wasn’t barking up quite the right tree.