Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
An enjoyable, but not too taxing, puzzle with all the answers being single words. We have both a girl’s name and a city, so there may be some criticism from those who do not like the use of proper nouns – over to you!
As usual the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets – just select the white space inside them to reveal all.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
Dateline: Hebden Bridge : Monday : 00:45
After a very pleasant birthday Sunday, I arrived home just after midnight full of bonhomie (sadly not alcohol) and at one with the world. So I logged on to Clued Up and, armed with a cup of coffee and Tracy Chapman on my speakers, set about the new challenge from our Monday Maestro.
Some minutes later I am waiting for Clued Up to decide whether I have completed the puzzle, although I am fairly certain I have it correct. Has my good humour survived? Let’s take a stroll round Across Street and Down Lane and see.
I have vented my spleen about the Telegraph Grids recently, so I shall say little about today’s abomination. There’s the usual smattering of cryptic definitions, and the usual odd one that stetches a point. I am sure I have seen the exact same clue at 5 down in a puzzle recently, so that is where I start.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
There have been a lot of good Sunday puzzles recently, and this was another. Sorry for the late appearance of this review, but I’m still sorting out Friday morning’s computer crash.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
Apologies for the late posting of this review. Big Dave normally does the Friday Toughie but he has suffered a catastrophic hardware failure and cannot get on-line, so I’ve done a quick mini write-up in his place. He also asked me to apologise for the late arrival of his full review of last Sunday’s puzzle – he’ll post it as soon as he is able.
As for today’s effort, I found it more irritating than satisfying – but there were a couple of clues I liked.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
Not sure about this crossword, maybe I got out of the wrong side of bed this morning, but I personally felt that this was somewhat 16a. and is only rescued by 18a. Comments appreciated as always.
Continue reading “DT 25971”
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
A pretty easy puzzle, which will have disappointed those who want a bit more to chew over on a Saturday. In its favour, the surface readings are nearly all convincing. The grid seems to be a direct match of a Times one, dreamt up by their former xwd editor Edmund Akenhead, with a big black E as a “signature”. It’s now a bit eccentric at the Times – their only grid with any fully checked answers – but much better than some of the DT ones.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
As the warm-up man for Big Dave and his battle with Excalibur tomorrow, I am usually full of praise for the Thursday setters. I am also a big fan of Firefly in his other setting alias, but for some reason, this is just not my cup of coffee (I can’t stand tea!!). I was quite looking forward to it, but just found that some of the clues lacked the invention and difficulty that we normally get from him.
For some reason I am reminded of the end of an epsiode of The Simpsons, where they do a send-up of Stephen King’s The Shining. I had a tough night last night with the heat and lack of air, despite having all the windows open and running the risk of bats flying in. However, I was looking forward to logging in and having a good battle today, but like Homer I was disappointed and the urge to kill rises…..(actually the urge to go and have a snooze rises!)
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Nothing too taxing today, but a pleasant challenge with a lot of nice surface readings.
As usual the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets – just select the white space to reveal them.
Continue reading “DT 25970”
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
There’s a saying “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it”, so all of us who complained yesterday that the Toughie was far too easy and that we wanted something tougher, have had our wish granted today. This one was a struggle from start to finish, with some obscure words and tricky wordplay. I really enjoyed the challenge.
Continue reading “Toughie 173”
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
A bit like last Wednesday, this is a pleasant puzzle that shouldn’t unduly trouble the average solver.