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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Rahmat Ali has given us a very entertaining puzzle for the Birthday Bash, which was a pleasure to solve. There were a couple of new words for me, but the cluing was fair. I was fairly sure of my answers for these, but I did check the BRB to make sure.
If you haven’t done so, please download it here> BIG DAVE’S BLOG BIRTHDAY BASH, 2026 and give it a go. You will not be disappointed.
Thank you, Rahmat, for your sterling efforts in producing a fine puzzle. Thank you, Sloop John Bee for your help with this blog and for organising a fabulous get-together.
Orf we jolly well go! Please forgive any errors Continue reading “Big Dave’s Blog Birthday Bash, 2026 by Rahmat Ali”
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Ottawa, where we are about to get a respite from a spell of bitterly cold weather (overnight lows below -20C and daytime highs below -12C). This week daytime temperatures will reach a more comfortable -5C. Our annual three week long Winterlude Festival has begun and the conditions are the best they have been in years. You can catch a glimpse of the preparations for the festivities in this video.
I found this to be a puzzle where the answers needed to be slowly teased out as the grid filled. In the end, I felt I had made harder work of it than it should have required. Nevertheless, it was certainly far from an unpleasant experience (and would have been even more enjoyable had I not been working under blogging pressure).
As the only way to halt my losing streak of setter predictions seems to be to stop predicting, I will not venture a guess this time.
In the hints below, underlining identifies precise definitions and cryptic definitions, FODDER is capitalized, and indicators are italicized. The answers will be revealed by clicking on the ANSWER buttons.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought of the puzzle.
I wrote the above puzzle for The Birthday Bash, The Perimeter Nina should read BIG DAVE’S IS SEVENTEEN TODAY, but as the blog was born on the 28th January 2009 and the Bash wasn’t until the 31st it was Three Days Late!… Continue reading
Sunday Toughie No 210
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A great time was had by all at the birthday bash – see posts passim for pics. It took a bit of puzzling to parse some of these and, as ever, I can’t hint them all.
Connection permitting I will try and give an extra nudge or two if I can. I went to see the wonderful Caravaggio at the Wallace collection Friday, and today I fancy having a look at 19d’s Gin Lane, which I believe is in the Tate.
Thanks to everyone who came to the bash I hope you had fun, and apologies if you tried the Teams link. I won’t try that again – it doesnt work well in a noisy pub environment.
Here we go, Folks…
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In July 2022, I stepped in for five weeks to give the Numpties an extremely well-deserved break. Little did I know that in February 2026 I would be doing my 100th EV blog…
After a relatively brief visit to Baby Brother in Wincanton and yesterday’s excursion to BB17, a very good Sunday morning once again from the former Staines, Middlesex.
Thinking of BB17, another very enjoyable event so thanks to SJB for exhibiting his organisational skills again. A good attendance featuring a number of ‘old stagers’ including Weekend Wanda (I hope you found your way to Paddington Station without any problems), Gazza, and Rabbit Dave, and some ‘newbies’ as far as attending a BB for the first time is concerned including ALP, Steve Cowling, and Huntsman.
For me, and I stress for me,© Dada quirkily friendly with three long ‘uns, seven anagrams (three partials), two lurkers, and no homophones in the most asymmetric grid of 30 clues I have ever seen; with 15 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, or it would be if I was not ecclesiastically socialising with my Big Sister, and the Naughty Step is OPEN! I imagine that crypticsue and Gazza could be standing by with their electronic blue pencils in hand.
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The first and most important thing I have to do today (even more important than providing hints for the Prize Puzzle and mentioning today’s gathering at Little Venice) is to wish Daisygirl’s husband George a very very happy 93rd birthday and hope that he enjoys the family celebrations of this great occasion
28th/31st January 2026
Big Dave’s 17th Birthday
Hello Folks,
Today’s the day. I hope to see as many of you as can manage the network rail chaos as possible, but for those that can’t be here I have a couple of puzzles and a Teams link for you.
https://teams.live.com/meet/9364709408706?p=jxqSsCNaPbQ87Pvvo3
is the teams link, I expect to be open from about noon.
BIG DAVE’S BLOG BIRTHDAY BASH, 2026
A puzzle from Rahmat Ali
Another from Prolixic to complement the NTSPP
A puzzle from me with help from Prolixic – please go easy on me it is only my 2nd puzzle. I am nowhere near as accomplished as Prolixic and Rahmat
