Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
Sunday Toughie No 194
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Beam is a little trickier than his last outing here (To Me™) but I stress again (27a) that is just right for a Sunday Toughie. Plenty of Beam trademarks and an economical sub-six words per clue. 14a and 16d clues today, and I have hinted half.
If asked, I will try and give a nudge, if you don’t get sufficient checkers to complete this fine puzzle
Here we go, Folks…
A very good Sunday morning from Winnipeg on our Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend; we don’t call the second Monday in October Columbus Day, as they do to the South of us, because we know that he never set foot in North America confining himself to exploration of the Bahamas and islands in the Caribbean including Cuba and Hispaniola.
For me, and I stress for me,© I expect that there will be some who will describe today’s puzzle as a ‘walk in the park’ or similar and one might think that this being my 359th Dada Sunday blog that I have got the complete measure of him, apparently not! This brought back memories of ST 2978 on November 18th, 2018. Two long ‘uns, 8 anagrams (3 partials), 1 lurker, and 2 homophones (one partial) all in a slightly asymmetric 28 clues; with 14 hints ‘sprinkled’ throughout the grid, you should/might be able to get the checkers to enable the solving of the unhinted clues. And, remembering what CS wrote about thinking yesterday, in Comment 11, my electronic blue pencil is at the ready and the Naughty Step is OPEN!
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Toughie No 3564 by Sparks
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
This is not too tricky for a Friday Toughie but enjoyable. There are two answers that I’d not heard of but both were very fairly clued. Many thanks to Sparks.
Continue reading “Toughie 3564”
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BD Rating - Difficulty **** - Enjoyment ***
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Friday. There’s some tricky parsing in today’s puzzle. Continue reading "DT 31054"
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This puzzle was published on 4th 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 important feedback. Continue reading “DT 31049 (Full Review)”
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BD Rating – Toughie difficulty * – Enjoyment ***
A surprisingly gentle Thursday Toughie from Kcit, though 16d’s GK certainly had me Googling. Always grand to learn summat new. All yours.
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31053
Hints and tips by Shabbo
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Good morning, fellow puzzlers.
RayT at his most benign, adding fuel to the fire of those who think that the DT may have abandoned their policy of starting the week gently and gradually increasing the level of difficulty as the week goes by.
No doubt as to our setter today, with the Queen and sweetheart making appearances and the words per clue standing at a fraction over five. From the Quickie Pun, we now also know that Ray hails from somewhere north of Watford Gap.
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 ***