Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
A Sunday puzzle that is tougher than some Toughies. Each answer must be carefully coaxed from the clue.
For the weekend prize crosswords I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them. A full analysis of this puzzle will be available at 12.00 next Friday, 24th July.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
This has been a particularly good week, and it does seem that many of the setters are raising their game. I hope that is in part due to the feedback that they have received from this blog. While I would expect that some notice is taken of the opinions of the person writing the individual review, it is your comments that have the biggest impact, so keep them rolling in. Everyone concerned, whether thay be bloggers or setters, is interested in what you have to say.
Now to today’s puzzle. A improvement on last Saturday, but while the inclusion of two well-known places, and names from art and literature were absolutely fine, I was disappointed by the girl’s name at 26 across. I do wish that these prize puzzles were a bit harder, but I’ve gone over that ground before. I was sent a copy of last Saturday’s prize puzzle from The Independent, and it was a breath of fresh air!
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 Thursday, 23rd July.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Yet another excellent Sunday puzzle – if you don’t do these you are missing out.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
To be honest, this was light relief after yesterday’s marathon. You need to get 5 down early on otherwise a large section of the puzzle will be made more difficult than necessary.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Another classic Friday crossword, that cannot be faulted – enjoy. The top right corner is the most tricky, but it’s where the best clues are for me. Your views and opinions appreciated as always.
Continue reading “DT 25983”
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
The difficulty of this puzzle was about average for a Saturday Telegraph. I didn’t enjoy this one much because there seemed to be quite a few problems of various kinds with the clues. So let’s get down to business.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment *****
Last time up we gave Giovanni only two stars for difficulty and the time before that it was three. Well, today it is payback! A true Toughie, which gives that real sense of achievement when you have filled in the final square.
Today it is Tilsit’s turn to suffer hardware problems. Unfortunately, his email to me got lost in the ether for nearly 4 hours, so my apologies for the lateness of the review. I think you will agree that this puzzle was worth the wait.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
We’ve been given a really excellent puzzle today, full of beautifully crafted clues with splendid surface readings. It has one obscure word (just to keep you on your toes!). As has been mentioned before, a puzzle like this gives the reviewer a double dose of pleasure – firstly when solving the puzzle, and later when writing the review. Of course you can get the reverse effect with a sub-standard puzzle!
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
This is a good solid Toughie with a few bits of complicated wordplay. If you were writing this review how many stars would you give it for difficulty and enjoyment? – let me know via a comment!
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
While the same setters appear to be used for the other days of the week, there is little doubt that Tuesdays and Wednesdays are being rotated. This puzzle was very enjoyable, and far better than the one a week ago. If I’m correct in guessing then this is one of my favourite setters, and an old friend may pay a visit later!