Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
A very enjoyable puzzle from Shamus to start this week’s Toughies. Knowledge of real British and fictional Danish Royalty will come in handy today, along with a smattering of Geography and History.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought. You can also add your assessment by selecting from one to five stars at the bottom of the post.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
It’s the turn of Shamus this Tuesday (I’m assuming) and he’s given us a not-too-difficult puzzle to ease us back into the normal routine after the holiday. It has some entertaining clues (although a few too many anagrams, for me). I did waver between two and three stars for difficulty, so I’d be interested in your views on this (or anything else).
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
I’ve had a very frustrating morning. Libellule was due to write today’s blog but the never-ending problems with CluedUp (is there a worse commercial web site?) meant that he had no access to the puzzle, so I agreed to swap with him and he’ll be doing this Friday’s. So I went to my usual shop to get the paper, only to find that they were not yet open (it being a Bank Holiday). I eventually got a paper and carefully transcribed all the clues, only to find, just when I’d finished, that CluedUp was back!
Anyway, enough of my difficulties, what of the puzzle? Rufus has produced a nice, gentle themed crossword, which I think that most solvers should enjoy. We’d love to hear from you via a comment.
For new readers, the answer to each clue is hidden between the curly brackets under it – just drag your cursor through the white space between the brackets to reveal it.
The blog will be a little late this morning due to, surprise, surprise, problems on CluedUp!
[BTW I can now access the site]
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If you were lucky enough to get into CluedUp this morning, or perhaps you purchased the Sunday Telegraph, here are some hints and tips to get you started.
Thought for the day – how long does a company persevere with an outsourcee that consistently delivers below-standard performance? Answers on a postcard to The Telegraph Group!
Don’t forget that you can give your assessment of the puzzle. Five stars if you thought it was great, one if you hated it, four, three or two if it was somewhere in between.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Friday, 9th April.
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Welcome to the eighth in our series of weekly puzzles.
Prolixic, or should that be Prolific, entertains us again. This one should be medium, say three stars. See if you agree.
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Don’t forget that you can give your assessment of the puzzle. Five stars if you thought it was great, one if you hated it, four, three or two if it was somewhere in between.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them. A full review of this puzzle will be published on Thursday, 8th April.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
A notch or two harder than most of the Sunday puzzles for me. The most interesting clues for me were 1A and 1D – both as cryptic clues and as a possible controversial comparison! (BG has expressed one or two political opinions in other puzzles.)
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
After about 30 minutes, with three or four unfilled answers, I started to panic with this one. The problem for me was an abject lack of knowledge about the themed answers connected with 4d, so there was more guesswork going on than I’m used to. That wasn’t a legitimate cause for panic, of course; no, it was panic because today is going to be a mad rush before flying out to Italy pre-sunrise tomorrow. My parents live over there, you see, so while I have the advantage of very cheap holidays on a hillside overlooking the Med with Portovenere in the distance and hot sun and great food and beautiful scenery and fellow bloggers turning green with envy, I have the disadvantage of midnight emails asking me to buy various bits and pieces they can’t get over there.
It’s fair to say my mind is on other things, so let’s stop the holiday talk for a moment and knuckle down…
This was a straight-down-the-middle sort of puzzle for me – no fireworks but hardly anything to grumble about; in fact there is an unexpected and very commendable high point at 12a. My enjoyment rating of three stars is only because I didn’t have an affinity with the theme, but I’m sure many of you will have taken greater pleasure in it.
Favourite clues are, as ever, in blue.
Leave a comment telling us what you thought. You can also add your assessment by selecting from one to five stars at the bottom of the post.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
The absence of Clued Up this morning meant that I had to go out to get a paper and type in the clues (so apologies for any transcription errors). It also means that I’ve been unable to verify my answers, so you may find that I’ve got the whole thing totally wrong!
I thought that today’s Giovanni was a strange mixture of very simple clues (especially 23d) and some answers (13a, 14d and 18d) that I’d never heard of. The four 3-letter clues in the middle all have fully-checked letters so that it’s possible to get an answer without looking at the clue at all!
Your comments are as always very welcome, and may I take the opportunity to wish all our readers a very enjoyable holiday weekend.