Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
MynoT continues to work his way through the alphabet in this puzzle and has now reached the letter L. It was a fairly gentle solve with the four 13-letter anagrams and the presence of the L’s adding to the gentleness.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
As this is definitely not one of Ray T’s puzzles, the sporting and music references (and the slightly harder-than-usual Quick crossword) suggest that Petitjean is today’s setter. Let’s hope he chooses today to leave his second comment on the blog, then we’ll know for sure.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *****
I feel very privileged to be allowed to blog a puzzle of this quality. Humour, clever wordplay and a distinct lack of very obscure words – I loved it – thanks to Micawber for making my day. How did you get on?
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Ottawa where April showers are extending into May. Pommers is traveling and apparently somewhat cut off from the Internet. However, I am sure he is closely following – and no doubt concerned by – the recent play of United. As for my sports obsession, the Ottawa Senators have already been knocked out of the hockey playoffs here in North America.
Apparently I get the honour of piloting the new blog site on its maiden run. Let’s hope I fare better than the captain of the Titanic.
Today we have a puzzle that is easily recognizable as a Jay creation. It did take me a bit of time to get started. However, once I had established a beachhead, I was able to make steady progress.
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After having availed myself of the free hosting on WordPress.com, I have decided to take the plunge into unknown territory and transfer the hosting of the site to Evohosting, based here in the UK. This transfer should take place soon after midnight BST, in time for a fresh start in the morning.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
No “slightly mad” hat needed for this Petitjean puzzle. How many of you got the wordplay to 25 across without looking it up? I certainly didn’t.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Today is May Day but we don’t have a theme relating to the International Workers’ Day or to the traditional celebrations such as Morris Dancing. Instead we have several sport-related answers. What did you think of it?
If you want to reveal an answer just slide your cursor through the space between the curly brackets under the troublesome clue.
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Not being a regular visitor to the Guardian website I have only just noticed Hugh Stephenson’s recent newsletters. Hugh is The Guardian’s crossword editor.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
This seems to be a lot more straight forward than Friday’s, so I don’t expect much use of the hints today.
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As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the more difficult clues and provide hints for them.