Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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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.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
One of the most difficult aspects of any cryptic crossword is the definition. Often the setter’s idea of a synonym is somewhat different from yours. See what you think about 4a, 24a, 5d and 17d – with better definitions this would probably be 4* rather than 3*.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment ****
A pinch and a punch it’s the first of the month and an entertaining puzzle by Elgar which has a definite eye on the calendar. Compared to some we have seen recently, this is a true Toughie that should delight the connoisseur and really stretch the newer solvers.
Elgar has worked so hard to ensure that all the across clues and several down clues all contain the F Word, and each one refers to a different word that means the F Word; a quite breath-taking feat. I would recommend having Mrs Bradford and her marvellous book at your side, if you still plan to tackle this and haven’t done so.
As usual the clue answers are hidden between the curly brackets for you to highlight with your mouse, if you wish to see them. We welcome your comments after the blog and you can rate the puzzle with our star system.
Masochists needing a further fix of today’s setter can find one just for today at this web link: –
http://www.independent.co.uk/extras/puzzles/crosswords/cryptic/
As an extra bit of help today, here are the words for fool used in the puzzle, but not in any particular order!
ASS, CLOT, DOPE, GIT, GOWK, NERD, OAF, PRAT, SAP, TWIT
Off we go!
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
An easier crossword than yesterday in my opinion. with generally good surface readings. However there is a real mixture of clue quality, the worst for me being 23d or 13a, whilst the extra star (two stars has been usual for a while) for enjoyment is for 1a.
If you highlight the space between the curly bracket, you will reveal the answer. Please leave a comment, and I hope the CC enjoy this one.
Continue reading “DT 26203”
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Kathryn Friedlander and Philip Fine, at the University of Buckingham, are launching an on-line survey to investigate the cognitive skills, motivation and development of expertise of those who tackle cryptic crosswords. They are looking for participants who tackle a ‘broadsheet’ cryptic crossword (such as the Daily Telegraph, Guardian or Independent crosswords) on a fairly regular basis, and who manage to complete it at least sometimes. Ideally, participants will have been solving cryptics for at least one year.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment **
I can’t pretend that I enjoyed this puzzle very much. In fact it was a bit of a slog with a fair few obscure words and not many laughs. You may, of course, disagree – we’d love to get a comment with your views.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
The usual great stuff from Jay – and I don’t want to hear any excuses from the Clueless Club today.
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.