Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
Puzzles that are only available on the Telegraph Puzzles website – these puzzles have not been published in the printed newspaper.
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BD Rating – Difficulty */** – Enjoyment ***
Good morning and Merry Christmas from South Staffs on a damp grey morning, with the promise of more rain to come.… Continue reading
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** + – Enjoyment *****
Down answers, all thematic, are similarly treated before entry.… Continue reading
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Mrs Bufo and I are having a quiet Christmas with no visitors to cater for so around midday we went for a leisurely stroll to the pub where we had a leisurely solve of the Toughie over a leisurely drink.… Continue reading
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BD Rating – Difficulty */** – Enjoyment ***
Merry Christmas Everyone – a lovely sunny morning here in East Kent, the turkey’s in the oven and a typical Rufus crossword, full of cryptic definitions, anagrams and a few Christmassy clues to please those of us who like a theme, to start the day’s solving, while Mr CS peels the sprouts.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
Season’s Greetings from the Calder Valley! One of the joys of Christmas is that the Telegraph continues to treat its subscribers with top-class puzzles throughout the festive season and we are spoiled this year with a Dada Toughie and the usual Rufus Cryptic and Elgar’s Double Toughie.
If you haven’t seen it. Stop now and go and print it off from here.
Quite simply, this is a breath-taking puzzle and one that may have you reaching for a hanky. Don’t let the preamble spoil things for you, this is a most amazingly clever grid construct by Elgar and is a fine tribute to one of the events that affected the crossword community towards the end of the year.
Basically with the exception of the clues to 1 ac / 13 ac which is a definition of the two entries at 24 ac and 47 ac, either of the two words at 1 ac / 13 ac may provide a definition for each half of each double across clue. So as you can imagine this is a brilliant grid construct and it does mean a couple of the down answers are a little more obscure, but those clues are fairly straightforward to get. In each across clue – I’ll define the across answers as either 1 ac or 13ac. I have shown the divide in each clue with a red slash.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
There’s nothing too taxing in this enjoyable puzzle by Dada. If you can find a moment between the mince pies a comment would be appreciated.
Continue reading “Toughie 100005”
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment ***
Season’s Greetings and A Happy New Year to all. A typical Rufus with his trademark cryptic and double defns. anagrams and the odd nautical reference. An easy one, even for him, which should leave plenty of time for your Christmas lunch. A 1* or less for difficulty, and just about 3* for enjoyment. Thanks to Rufus.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment *****
Elgar has served up another excellent Double Toughie, just like he did last Christmas. This one is not trivially easy, but neither is it up to the difficulty level he achieved last year. As ever, reading the instructions carefully is essential. Like the other Christmas Day puzzles, it is only available online.
I have identified the key answers, namely a, b, c, d, e, x and y, inside the curly brackets, along with the answers.
Discovering the theme, which I did early on, is vital when solving those across clues which lack definition.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
This crossword appeared on Christmas Day 2012. As the Daily Telegraph is not published on this day, the crossword was only available to on-line subscribers to the Telegraph Puzzles site.
Kcit has set us a gentle Christmas Day Toughie but with a little game to play when you have solved the crossword. When solved, the first and last columns of the completed grid reveal the name of a party game. The words in brackets in the clue to 6a give a strong hint that something is going on.
The words in brackets in the clue to 27a invite to play the game and find the final word of the game in the grid. If you have not yet found the hidden word, look at the marvellous reveal that Big Dave produced at the end of this blog. I think it took me longer to find the hidden word in the grid that it took to solve the crossword.
Happy Christmas to Kcit and all our Toughie tormenters over the past year.
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
A Happy Christmas to you all from South Staffordshire, where the family have gathered, the turkey is browning nicely, and the sprouts have not been boiling since November!
We have a suitably festive theme in today’s puzzle, which is probably set by Rufus. I found the left hand side of the grid easier than the right, with the SE corner the last to be finished.