Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Once again Jay delivers an excellent puzzle in the Telegraph genre.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought. You can also add your assessment by selecting from one to five stars at the bottom of the post.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from the Calder Valley and thanks to Big Dave and the others for covering for me during my short stay in hospital. Normally Big Dave and I play a guessing game just after midnight each Toughie Day trying to work out who the setter is. (Sad people that we are!) I looked at today’s just after the witching hour and came up with two suspects, but neither felt quite right. It therefore came as a pleasant surprise to find out that we were in the hands of a new setter today.
So welcome Petitjean, and judging by today’s encouraging start, I would think that we may be in for some entertaining puzzles. A couple of tiny gripes about one or two clues, but this is a most welcome addition to the Toughie panel with a puzzle much more worthy of the title than several recent ones. I look forward to the next one. Many of today’s Across clues or answers each had a food bent, although on occasion it was a little farci, as they say in France
As usual, your comments are welcomed. There is a delay for first-time posters having their posts published as they are moderated to remove spammers. You can also grade the puzzle yourself using the star system just below. Click in the star that represents how you felt about the puzzle.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Today we have an entertaining puzzle from Shamus (I’m assuming that it’s by Shamus – apologies if I’m wrong). As I write, Clued Up is showing it with five stars for difficulty – I don’t think that our regular correspondents will find is as difficult as that. Let us know, via a comment, whether Clued Up is right or I’m right!
For new readers, the answer to each clue is hidden between the curly brackets under the clue; drag your cursor through the white space between the brackets to reveal it.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
A gentle, pleasant start to the week.
As usual each answer is hidden within curly brackets. Please highlight the white space for it to show up.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
As you probably expected, your Sunday setter took full advantage of the puzzle appearing on Valentine’s day. Every clue is about romance, and so are many answers.
Continue reading “ST 2523”
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Probably my fastest TT solve ever until I reached the very last clue (thanks to BD for helping out). I’m not quite sure why the solve was so quick because, looking back through the clues again, I think there are some quite tricky bits; in fact there are some answers I placed without full understanding of the wordplay, so this review might just contain a few um-ah-er moments. We’ll see.
Easy as it was, it was still enjoyable. A couple of surface readings look less than convincing but I’m very biased in having that area of clueing as the main thing I aim for when writing. To many solvers it’s not that important.
As is my wont, favourite clues are in blue.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
It’s always worth checking the Saturday Prize puzzle to see if a pangram (all 26 letters of the alphabet) is in the offing. As soon as you spot two or three of the letters J, Q, V, X and Z then there is a good chance that, like today, the others may be lurking in the undergrowth. This was a pleasant puzzle and the improvements, over the year that we have been writing reviews, has been noticeable. As ever my complaint is that I, and many others, would prefer a more difficult puzzle.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *
This is the worst Giovanni puzzle that I can remember.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
I didn’t think that this Toughie was especially difficult, in spite of being held up for a while in the top right-hand corner. It does have a couple of sporting references, one football and one rugby, that may cause some problems, and I do have niggles with a few of the clues.
As always, we’d love to get your views.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Jay’s puzzles are probably those that fit the Telegraph genus best. Seldom difficult, often amusing, occasionally irritating, but always fair. As Libellule has commented previously, each one does precisely what it says on the can!
Leave a comment telling us what you thought. You can also add your assessment by selecting from one to five stars at the bottom of the post.