Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
This is an average sort of Toughie with a man’s name, a woman’s name, a river, an English town, a couple of Greek mythological characters, a historian, a poet and a festival all making an appearance. As usual you can reveal the answer by selecting the white space between the curly brackets if my hints are not good enough.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
A superior puzzle with some very good clues and on the whole a really enjoyable solve. I’m left with the impression that the compiler wants you to do a fair bit of thinking outside the box with some of these main or subsidiary definitions.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
You have to work to get the answers in this very enjoyable puzzle. One or two clues have wordplay that takes a bit of unravelling, but there is nothing here that is beyond the capabilities of the average Toughie solver.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
This is another decent puzzle from our normal Tuesday setter, whose trademark is to have only single-word answers. Some will decry the layout of the grid, with each of the corners pretty isolated – but look on the bright side, you get four puzzles for the price of one!
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *
Unfortunately Tilsit is not well enough to review today’s puzzle. After doing it, I know how he feels! I looked through to see if I could say a few nice words about it.
Don’t forget the Clue of the Week competition – cast your vote now. I don’t think I will be putting any of today’s forward for this week.
Tilsit hopes to be back later this week, and I’m sure you will join me in wishing him well again soon.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
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 Thursday, 7th May.
Some hints to get you started:
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May 03 – Codewords 1291 has now been changed
Late news – Mrs BD, optimistically confident that the Codewords couldn’t be wrong again this week, has found that it is wrong!
Yes, that’s right, there’s a problem with the squares numbered 1 yet again.
May 02 – 14.30 – Giant GK 12260 is available online now!
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
Well – you will have plenty of time to stand and stare today without your regular diet of Saturday’s Giant GK Crossword!
But wait, help is at hand.
Look, here’s a scan.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Thursday, 7th May.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
Elgar has consistently set Toughies that are Tough, and this one is no exception. To say that is easier than some of Elgar’s previous puzzles doesn’t mean it is easy. For those that do battle with this puzzle, the reward is in the satisfaction of completing it. But don’t worry if you get stuck – you can find all of the answers here.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
I found this one to be a lot harder than the other crosswords this week. Either I was having a bad day, or this really was more difficult. Comments appreciated.
