Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
Toughie No 3572 by Osmosis
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
A properly tough Friday-level puzzle with no anagrams which I enjoyed doing battle with. Thanks to Osmosis.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
Continue reading “Toughie 3572”
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BD Rating - Difficulty *** - Enjoyment ****
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Friday. I thought this puzzle was very enjoyable with a difficulty level around average for the Friday slot. I hope our setter drops in later to claim it. Continue reading "DT 31066"
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This puzzle was published on 18th October 2025
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Kolkata. A nice, lovely Saturday puzzle from NYDK that I enjoyed solving and thereafter writing a review of the same for your kind perusal and significant feedback.
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BD Rating – Toughie difficulty */** – Enjoyment ****/*****
Django’s been fairly gentle today, gifting us a puzzle studded with clever touches and smart surfaces, as ever. His delightfully eclectic cultural references range from The Simpsons to Victor Borge, via the Coen brothers, and, accordingly, it proved hugely entertaining. All yours.
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31065
Hints and tips by Shabbo
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Good morning, fellow puzzlers.
Ray T entertains us again this Thursday with a fine puzzle. The Queen and the sweetheart are there as ever, with brevity of clueing at a miserly 5.25 words/clue. The jury is still out as to whether Ray’s self-imposed brevity and single word answers limit the opportunity for humour in his puzzles.
I will be blogging from North Norfolk next week, with fingers crossed that today’s storm will have well and truly blown over by then!
In the blog below, the definition element of each clue has been underlined, anagrams are CAPITALISED and the crossword technique “indicator words” are in brackets. The answers are concealed under the “Click Here” buttons. Please leave a comment telling us how you got on and what you thought of the puzzle.
Many thanks to our setter and to the DT Crossword Team.
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BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty * – Enjoyment ***
I found this to be quite a friendly Toughie, but will others agree?
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
A very good Wednesday morning from Winnipeg where, with a temperature of 4 degrees and a North wind blowing at 23 km/hr with gusts to 45 km/hr, the black coat had its first outing at this end of the year yesterday!
For me, etc© (I have to say that for Terence), somewhat quirky with some head scratching when it came to some of the parsings. I am not going to attempt to guess the setter, but thanks to them.
Toughie No 3569 by Dada
Hints and tips by Whybird
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment *****
Happy Tuesday, everyone! Autumn’s colours continue to develop, the winter thrushes are still arriving in good numbers and the Wirral’s leaves are by-and-large staying on the trees: no doubt waiting for the Garden Waste collection to go into hibernation before crashing down and piling up.
Dada’s turn to break us into the Toughie week, and I thought this was perfectly pitched, with some gimmes to get things moving, and a lot of clever and nuanced deceptions. It was very much the proverbial “Crossword of two halves, Brian” with the NW going in very quickly (14d excepted) and then the SE taking a while to get sorted. My stand-outs (amongst a very good crop) were 1a and 28a. Thank you, Dada, for an excellent puzzle.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
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BD Rating – Difficulty * Enjoyment ***/****.
The sun is at least struggling to put in an appearance & it’s not currently raining here in Harpenden but it looks like that’s but a temporary respite with more wet stuff on the way over the next couple of days. A few days golf in Portugal is starting to look more alluring by the day.
As our esteemed Sat or Sun even & alternate Wed blogger would say a typically Tuesdayish bit of Plumbing from the Prof that ought not to present too many difficulties for most solvers. As ever concisely clued with some neat wordplay & dashes of humour. For any that waltzed through this one Dada is over in t’other place with a Toughie that’s very manageable & I’m sure Whybird would appreciate your comments.
In the hints below the definition element of each clue has been underlined, anagrams are CAPITALISED & the crossword technique “indicator words” are in brackets. The answers are concealed under the Click Here buttons. Please leave a comment below telling us what you thought & how you got on with the puzzle.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Ottawa, where we enjoyed a glorious Sunday under clear skies with the temperature in the mid-twenties. Today is more seasonable with temperatures falling to the mid-teens.
I sped through half the clues at a one-star pace but then bogged down. This may be due, in part, to some British geography and idiomatic expressions with which I was unfamiliar. I expect some solvers across the pond may find my rating to be too high.
I would like to thank Smylers for sitting in for me last week so I could enjoy a delicious Thanksgiving turkey dinner.
In the hints below, underlining identifies precise definitions and cryptic definitions, FODDER is capitalized, and indicators are italicized. The answers will be revealed by clicking on the ANSWER buttons.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought of the puzzle.