Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
Osmosis is Michael Warburton. He is also Scorpion of the Independent and Aardvark of the Financial Times.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment **
I found this to be a bit of a slog, especially the North West East corner. The answers are obvious when you know them, but a lot of them had to be prised out one by one, a bit like pulling teeth.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
Osmosis has given us a proper Toughie today with a good dose of his usual complex wordplay (I haven’t done so much reversing since I took my driving test). It’s also a pangram but I didn’t discover that until I’d finished it, so it wasn’t of any practical use.
Continue reading “Toughie 1187”
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Tilsit is unavailable today and I have spent most of the morning sorting out the site, including a raft of problems (at the blogging end) introduced by the WordPress upgrade and a rogue plugin (the Guestbook one, now disabled) that used up over 5gb of the 6gb available. The hints are here, albeit a little late.
As is usual with Osmosis it took longer to fully resolve the wordplay than it did to complete the puzzle.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
A typical Osmosis puzzle where the difficulty comes from the convoluted clue constructs, which, for me, reduces the enjoyment level. However, 22 across added one star back in!
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
On first reading through the clues I wondered whether we’d been given a Friday Toughie by mistake but I gradually worked my way into it and thereafter progress was steady rather than spectacular. It was the stiffest Wednesday Toughie I’ve blogged for some time, so thanks to Osmosis for the enjoyment.
Continue reading “Toughie 1147”
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Good morning from a storm-ravaged Devon – the weather has got steadily worse since John Kettley retired!
I enjoyed this Osmosis Toughie (in spite of the two animals which I had to work out from the wordplay and then look up) although I didn’t like 20a. The enumeration helped a lot with the four peripheral English towns but I imagine that these caused a few difficulties for solvers abroad.
Continue reading “Toughie 1131”
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment **
I found this to be quite a slog and I’m still not sure about which of two possible answers for 12 across is the one the setter intended.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***/**** – Enjoyment ****
I thought that this was just the right level of difficulty for a midweek Toughie with some excellent attempted misdirections and some very smooth surface readings. I enjoyed it a lot (and it’s a pangram).
Continue reading “Toughie 1103”
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
You never quite know what to expect from an Osmosis puzzle, but, as this one was published on a Friday, I did expect a tougher challenge than this.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
This is a decent midweek Toughie (and for once I’ve noticed that it’s a pangram). I’m pleased to be able to echo BD’s comment of yesterday that there are mercifully few anagrams.
Continue reading “Toughie 1075”