Toughie No 1196 by Shamus
Hints and tips by Bufo
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
A pleasant though not very taxing puzzle
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 ***
A pleasant though not very taxing puzzle
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
I didn’t need to be grumpy today because I enjoyed this puzzle even though it wasn’t all that difficult and I did have trouble with some of the wordplay (especially for 21 down). At least my grumpiness last week seemed to lead to an increase in the number of comments. This was most welcome following the previous Thursday’s record low of 6 comments
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Shamus lets us gently into this new Toughie week with an enjoyable puzzle.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
I filled in the two long answers immediately and thought that the puzzle was going to be a doddle. It turned out to be more difficult than that and some of the wordplay was quite testing.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Thanks to Shamus for an enjoyable puzzle with enough “easy” clues to pave the way for the slightly trickier ones.
Continue reading “Toughie 1127”
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
A typical Tuesday Toughie, not too difficult but very enjoyable.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***/**** – Enjoyment ***/****
Another steady solve of a puzzle that was neither too easy nor too hard. There were 2 or 3 words I hadn’t heard of but none of them caused a problem.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***/**** – Enjoyment ***
I think this is a puzzle of average difficulty but I made heavier weather of it than I should have done and so I have added half a star to the difficulty rating. It was a pleasant enough puzzle.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
This puzzle by Shamus is an excellent start to the Toughie week, and above-average for a Tuesday.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
I was obviously not on good anagram-solving form this morning because I made heavy weather of 3 of the 4 long anagrams. As a result this puzzle took me longer than it should have done. I suspect that anyone who solved these anagrams quickly would have found this to be a fairly simple puzzle.