The Judge will also point out where you went wrong! You will find the wise words of The Judge in each issue of BIG, Colossus Crosswords, MEGA! and Collection magazines. If there are any clues you'd like explained The Judge is the one to ask – get in touch here.
Stows away in the shop
Let’s start with clue 169dn in the Stinker, which was a little ambiguous. ‘Stores’ suggests a few different answers including two that fitted the spaces on our grid; the noun SHOPS, places you buy things, or the verb STOWS, stashes away. We accepted both answers.
One of the world’s endangered animals [more…]
Flying through the clues
We were faced with a bit of a dilemma in the Bigcash. The usual English spelling for ‘Small handbill’ is FLYER but quite a few entries had FLIER. This is more common in American English, but as it is a variant spelling and does appear in some dictionaries, we had to [more…]
Beware Greeks bearing clues
One of my favourite tales from Ancient Greece is that of the wooden horse. Devised by Odysseus after years of unsuccessful attempts to enter Troy, Greek soldiers hid inside a large wooden horse while the rest of their army pretended to give up and sail away. The Trojans were persuaded to [more…]
Sibyl’s prophecy for a Stinker
A simple spelling mistake caught out some Stinker-lovers at 1dn. ‘Prophetess’ needed SIBYL not SYBIL. Sibyl’s were depicted as old women who lived in caves making prophecies. The most famous was the one who assisted Aeneas in his journey to the underworld.
Another often misspelt name caught out others of you [more…]
Magnificent Monster
The Double Monster is one of your favourite contests, combining the fun of cracking the code in the Monster Starhunt, with the challenge of unravelling the clues in the Monster Colossus.
With so many clues to solve it is no surprise when a few errors appear.
At 33dn the clue ‘False doctrines’ needed HERESIES and [more…]
Keeping the judges honest
Judging the competition entries always results in much discussion around words and meanings. Sometimes things get a little heated, but we always come to a decision and are as kind as we can be, while still being fair to all entrants. This month’s entries provided much brain-stretching for our team.
At 1dn [more…]
Teeing up the clues
In the Cashwords, for ‘Arranged, … up’ at 170dn, we accepted both TEED and TIED. Tee comes from the sporting world. A tee is a stand for a ball, perhaps the best known being the golfer’s tee. A golfer tees up and tees off.
Arranged can also be to tie up, [more…]
AFICIONADO comes from the Spanish for ‘arouse affection’ and means an enthusiast or ‘Ardent devotee’ (Demon 22dn).
Most of you Demon aficionados had no trouble with this answer but a few of the less canny crossworders had AFICIANADO, AVICIANADO or even OFFICINADO. The latter caused more problems in across clues, ’Slipstream’ (21ac), which was WAKE [more…]
In reference to The Judge Sums Up BIG FEB. relating to Goliathon Dec.’09 , I considered ‘two-by two craft’ as one of the easier clues.
What is the purpose of a crossword , such as The Demon or Goliathon , without a challenge?
Christine , I also feel you have been too lenient in increasing the [more…]
