Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Big Dave is taking a well-deserved weekend off, so I’ve been volunteered to provide selected hints for today’s and tomorrow’s prize puzzles. As usual a full review of today’s puzzle by Peter Biddlecombe will appear next Thursday afternoon. I enjoyed doing this one, especially the cryptic clues.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment *****
Once again Elgar serves up a Toughie that is worthy of the name. Always tough, always enjoyable, each answer has to be carefully extracted. Even after I had completed it, I still had to sort out the wordplay for four of the clues.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
A tricky crossword today, but with some very good clues.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
Given a 4-star difficulty rating mainly bcause it took me a long time to be sure of 9A, so the total time was about double my average for this puzzle. One of those rather odd grids that’s perfectly OK apart from the over-unched 5-letter words, but includes a whopping 16 7-letter answers, and only three other word-lengths. It’s easy to see changes that would both increase the variety of answer lengths and fix the under-unching.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
An elegant and challenging puzzle from one of the best crossword setters and a personal favourite of mine. Some very clever and thought-provoking clues mixed with accessible ones provide a good challenge for solvers. The clues have beautiful surface readings as well.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Nothing too obscure or contentious today – what we have is a straightforward puzzle which should not frustrate regular solvers for very long, but which contains some entertaining clues.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
A definite toughie today with several words which were new to me and a couple of familiar words with meanings that I did not previously know. All in all it is a fair and entertaining challenge. It definitely helps a lot if you can crack 5d and 9d early on.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
This is the sort of puzzle that you come to expect in the Telegraph. Nothing too difficult, no awkward constructs, no obsolete or obscure words, no silly phrases, no proper nouns, no isolated corners, and certainly no sign of those love ’em or hate ’em unches! Just a good, honest puzzle. Well done our Wednesday setter.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
When I see that Giovanni is the setter, I know I am in for a difficult but thoroughly enjoyable puzzle. Today is no exception, even allowing for the fact that this interestingly shaped grid is more-or-less four puzzles in one. There were a handful of easier clues – just as well or you might never get started – but nothing so difficult that, even if you didn’t know the answer, you couldn’t work it out from the wordplay.
