Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
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Sunday Toughie No 227
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A generous 32 clues from Beam today, all the trademarks are here. I have hinted at 17 clues, so I can give a nudge if needed.
I went a bit 2d OTT with The Who today, but feel free to ignore some or all of the music links.
I was hoping to match Senf’s image of John Halpern/Dada with one of Ray Terrell/Beam but I have failed to find a pic. Maybe you can help.
Here we go, Folks…
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Gemini was quite excited by the opportunity to search for an innovator and a connection and proposed several candidate innovations and inventors – the most promising were: “The Electric Battery”, Volta (5), symbols=”+,-”, and “The Electric Telegraph”, Morse (5), symbols = • (Dot) and – (Dash).… Continue reading
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A very good Sunday morning from Winnipeg where last week’s 7 day weather forecast proved to be correct – imagine that! Ponder this, at midnight tonight, just before Flaming June starts, 2026 will be 41.4% complete! Apart from solving crossword puzzles, have you used your time wisely?
For me, and I stress for me,© at last, Dada quite friendly! One long ‘un, seven anagrams (two partials) with some creative indicators (TDS will like those), two lurkers, and one homophone, all in an asymmetric 29 clues; I can’t provide 14½ hints so I am being generous and giving you 15 hints ‘sprinkled’ throughout the grid which means 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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BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty *****+ – Enjoyment *****
There is one thing the solver can be certain about when it is Elgar Friday is that there will be no doubt whatsoever that we will have a properly tough Toughie to solve Continue reading “Toughie 3696”
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BD Rating - Difficulty *** - Enjoyment ***
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Friday. Nice puzzle today. Biggest holdup was parsing the crafty 22a. Continue reading "DT 31252"
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This puzzle was published on 23rd May 2026
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Kolkata. A nice and straightforward Saturday puzzle from Twmbarlwm that I enjoyed solving and thereafter writing a review of the same for your kind perusal and significant feedback. Continue reading “DT 31247 (Full Review)”
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BD Rating – Toughie difficulty **+ – Enjoyment ****/*****
I thoroughly enjoyed this. There’s a spot of vocab – 27a was unknown to me – but it’s all very fairly clued. I initially suspected we were approaching *** territory as – despite getting lucky with 1a, having recently visited Hungary – I found the top a little bumpy. But the second half eases up dramatically. Whether that’s because it really is significantly easier in the South or whether I’d just refound my Donny legs by then, I’m not entirely sure. Certainly, there is NO science, which always makes me sob. And there is an extremely helpful and literally comic mini-theme. So **+ (as in not quite a 2.5) it is … for a Thursday. As ever, the floor is yours to agree disagree. PS … I should add (ta lots Sloop) that this is apparently Donnybrook’s 100th Toughie, as perhaps alluded to by the 11 ‘C’s dotted about the grid. Hats off, sir: a tremendous achievement.
