Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
A nice enjoyable and gentle start to the week. With exactly what we expect from Rufus. No complaints from me. Both Gazza and I agree that 15d is the clue of the day.
As usual if you want to see the answers directly, just highlight the space between the curly brackets.
Continue reading “DT 26212”
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A few hints to get you started on this excellent puzzle from Virgilius.
Don’t forget that you can give your assessment of the puzzle. Five stars if you thought it was great, one if you hated it, four, three or two if it was somewhere in between.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Friday, 16th April.
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The usual few hints to get you started.
Don’t forget that you can give your assessment of the puzzle. Five stars if you thought it was great, one if you hated it, four, three or two if it was somewhere in between.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them. A full review of this puzzle will be published on Thursday, 15th April.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment ****
Four-letter words scuppered me in this one – at 1D I wrongly had SHED when the large number is “shed load”, and at 23D I missed LEFT as one of the possibilities for ?E?T, and gave up with WENT, BELT and RENT all fitting only half of the clue. Both my fault, though helped by a fear/loathing of 4-letter words with common checking letters. Also helped by not realising that one apparent double definition was actually triple.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
A terrific end to the week from one of my favourite setters and a puzzle that actually is worthy of the title of Toughie. Some delicious clues to make your mind go into overdrive, but all extremely fair. I also encountered a couple of new words that I was unfamiliar with and needed a check in Chambers to make sure.
If you are around tomorrow, the Saturday website puzzle is one of my own creations and I hope that you’ll all give it a try.
[Tilsit has done this review as Anax is away this week in Italy. BD]
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *****
Absolutely superb stuff from Giovanni today. Some brilliant clues and some real laugh out loud moments.
I have really enjoyed doing this crosword and then writing the blog. I will be back on Monday (I hope) to tackle my first Rufus blog, until then please feel free to leave a comment.
If the hints are not enough to allow you to derive the answer, just highlight the space between the curly brackets!
Continue reading “DT 26210”
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Another of the new, improved Saturday Prize puzzles. Let us know what you think – too easy?, too hard?, like it?, don’t like it?
Continue reading “DT 26205”
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
A bit of a curate’s egg, this puzzle. Some stuff to be admired, but one or two very poor clues that really drag it back. 12 across is what can only be described as a complex anagram in that as far as I can see, you need to make an anagram of some letters within a word. No instruction to remove letters first, as is normal with this sort of clue. Excalibur certainly has a unique style of her own, which sort of divides the punters here. It’s very much a case of you pays your money……
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
Libellule has moved, from next week, to take on Rufus every Monday.
Thursday is our mystery day and, unsurprisingly, no setter has owned up to any of these mundane puzzles! This one does has one or two better clues, 17 across for example.
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 ***
You need to be of a certain age to remember some of the references in this puzzle. We have a U.S. statesman from the 1960s and a cricketer who played his last test match in 1961. This certainly qualified as a Toughie in terms of difficulty, but it was a bit disappointing for a Giovanni, with a scarcity of “Aha” moments and some less than smooth surface readings.
As always we like to hear your views – please take the time to leave a comment.