Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
Messinae is Richard Palmer. He is also known as Merlin.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Bufo is in London today, so Gazza has kindly offered to tackle Ray T, leaving me with the Toughie. My only hold-up was having to wait until I had the answer to 16 down before being able to solve 1 across.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
We seem to be getting more than our fair share of easy Toughies this week. Will tomorrow’s more than make up for it? Bufo should be back in this slot next week.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Today’s four 14-letter anagrams succumbed more readily than last week’s 15-letter anagrams. This led to a quick problem-free solve. I don’t particularly like all the long answers in a puzzle being clued by anagrams but I suppose it makes up for yesterday’s anagramless puzzle.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **/*** – Enjoyment ***/****
Thanks to Messinae for an enjoyable midweek Toughie producing a number of smiles, although a few of the surface readings are not very convincing.
Continue reading “Toughie 1047”
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
This is not the most difficult of Toughies but it’s one that I enjoyed. There is a bit of a mini-theme relating to old comic actors.
Continue reading “Toughie 1030”
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
This is only the fourth Messinae puzzle that I have ever had to blog and it was easily the most enjoyable one to date. I rated the difficulty at the top end of the *** range
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
The usual relatively gentle start to the Toughie week with a puzzle that I, and I suspect many others, found to be easier than the one on the back page. Overseas solvers may be mystified by the references to UK TV shows, especially 6 across.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
Much like last Tuesday, a puzzle that would have been better suited to the back page. There are setters out there capable of compiling tougher puzzles than this, but the Telegraph continues to ignore them.
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment **
A very easy Toughie for a very rainy Jubilee Bank holiday. Being able to guess the songs from just a few letters helped, but the whole puzzle was done and dusted very quickly.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
This turned out to be a gentle solve which posed no significant problems. There is a bit of a theme in that 16, 21, 7, 14, 3 and 27 form a sequence.