Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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You have reached the world’s biggest and best crossword blog. If you are looking for help with the Daily and Sunday Telegraph cryptic crosswords or the Enigmatic Variations advanced cryptic, a total of 13 puzzles a week, then you have come to the right place.
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Sunday Toughie No 226
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Silvanus was last here on Easter Sunday and seems to becoming the regular bank holiday substitute.
Good fun until I made a mess of parsing some of the south. I was sailing along smoothly until a bad night for Mama Bee somewhat messed up my thinking.
She seems a bit more compos mentis this morning, so we are going out for the day. I have hinted at (just about) half of a slightly unbalanced 16a and 13d clues. Some tricky bits have hit the cutting room floor, so I’ll nudge if needed (and can).
Here we go, Folks…
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Wondering just how many EV puzzles Kcit had set in his long career, I consulted Dave Hennings’ excellent xwdb.info site.
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A very good Sunday morning from Winnipeg where, if the weather forecast for the next 7 days is accurate (ha-ha), we will have missed out Spring completely and gone straight to Summer with temperatures in the high 20s and low 30s.
For me, and I stress for me,©  Dada still almost as quirky as last few Sundays – seven anagrams (six partials), one lurker, and one homophone, all in a symmetric 32 clues; with 16 hints ‘sprinkled’ throughout the grid you should/might be able to get some of the checkers to enable the solving of the unhinted clues. I hope you have your Crimson Tomes at hand!
Remember that Reading the Hints before commenting can be beneficial!
If it is some time since you read, or if you have never read the instructions in RED below the hints then please consider doing so before commenting today as my electronic blue pencil is at the ready and the Naughty Step is OPEN!
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Toughie No 3692 by Luxor
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
By Friday Toughie standards this is fairly straightforward. Thanks to Luxor for the enjoyable puzzle.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
Continue reading “Toughie 3692”
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BD Rating - Difficulty **** - Enjoyment ***
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Friday. I found today’s grid fill and parsing a little more challenging than those of recent Friday puzzles. Continue reading "DT 31246"
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This puzzle was published on 16th May 2026
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Kolkata.… Continue reading
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BD Rating – Toughie difficulty */** – Enjoyment ****
As ever, one of the trickiest elements of blogging (apart from trying and failing to come up with musical clips that don’t enrage Jane!) is the difficulty rating. Talking of Jane, I know we all hope that no news is good news. Everything crossed. If you’re on Dharma’s wavelength (and, for some reason, I generally am) this should fly in, but, if you’re not, some of his typically wily wordplay might slow you down. I’ve gone with a safe-ish 1.5 – I hope that’s not too irritating. The floor is yours to agree … or not!
