Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
Shamus is Philip Marlow [The fictional character Philip Marlowe, created by Raymond Chandler, lived in Shamus Town, a loosely disguised Los Angeles]. He sets puzzles as Hypnos in the Independent and Sleuth in the Financial Times. He also sets some of the questions on “Only Connect”
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
This was slightly trickier than I thought it was going to be in that a bit of thought was needed to work out some of the wordplay.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
For the second day running I’m reviewing a Shamus puzzle. I thought that it was very entertaining with some good “doh” moments and only three anagrams (hurrah). I was proceeding quite rapidly until I reached the final (NE) corner where I came to a juddering halt for a little while.
I don’t usually pay much attention to the grid (in many years of doing crosswords before starting blogging here I hardly ever noticed them), but after yesterday’s discussion on “double unches” etc I thought I’d better inspect today’s. I see that it has two clues with a double unch and with less than fifty percent of the letters checked – this may be of little consequence or it may be a hanging offence; I don’t know and it doesn’t worry me.
Let us know what you thought of the puzzle in a comment.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
By common consent the back-page crossword by Shamus yesterday was a gentle but entertaining puzzle, ideal for newcomers. Today he’s shown his range and given us a proper Toughie which I enjoyed (and it’s a pangram). Let us know what you thought of it in a comment.
After yesterday’s Toughie, when there was obviously some “block voting” going on which made the whole exercise farcical, I’ll understand if you feel it’s a waste of time casting an individual vote to indicate how much you enjoyed the puzzle. However, if you’d like to, please click on one of the stars below.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
I was excited to hear on Capital Radio this morning that Beyoncé is to work with Big Dave. Then I was disappointed to find out that it’s not our Big Dave. Maybe that’s why I made somewhat heavy weather of this puzzle. I’m not sure that I fully understood all the clues but it was an enjoyable puzzle and fair enough.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
I enjoyed this puzzle. I was becalmed for a while in the top left-hand corner but overall thought it of average difficulty.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
This puzzle from Shamus is very pleasant, but lacks the usual teeth of a Friday Toughie. Although a few of the constructs are a little harder than those found in a regular cryptic, this should be within the scope of the average solver.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
I had no real problem with filling in the grid but I had to think hard to work out some of the wordplay. I worked it all out except for 21 down. Big Dave couldn’t help but Gazza and Tilsit came up with the explanation.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
We have a pleasant challenge today, not a piece of cake but not mind-blowingly difficult – just right for a freezing Wednesday. Let us know what you think of it in a comment and please take the time to click on one of the stars below to show how you rate it.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
A very entertaining puzzle from Shamus today that had me scratching my head to resolve all of the wordplay.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
I struggled with this one and it took me far longer than usual. Perhaps I wasn’t on form today! I wasn’t familiar with a couple of words used in the wordplay but otherwise I had no problems understanding the clues.