Before we finish the Year of the Ox (seeing the Tiger prowl into view on Valentine’s Day), can you convert this week’s ten odd phrases into something more familiar?
ox box
bell cut
flood feather
board cheese
granny pancake
kite chair
card tack
Larry hour
muck ground
daisy water
SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB242 SOLUTION: ILLINOIS, LOUISIANA, TENNESSEE
Bloody barnstorming return to Brainstorming, you lot. This one took me yonks to adjudicate, with so much quality gear, turning Yankee titles into their Ocker versions.
Not only did we get the Tolkien trilogy via CRD:
Mateship of the Clacker
Coupla Towers – Bewdiful
F*** Me, the King’s Back
But we also got Mary Poppins’ mouthful, courtesy of Mauve:
Beauty! Mallee [...]
Must be a record – four Huh clues in one crossword. The puzzle was Times 8570, hoarded from a few weeks back, and solved at leisure these holidays. Fine challenge too, but then I began glancing at some of my pencil-work, wondering how I managed to weasel the answers.
Maybe you bright lot can tell me, unpicking the four in question, or [...]
We good for a new Brainstorm? Let’s see if we can assemble a post-holiday posse to tackle this Oz Day challenge.
The theme is a flip-flop on what Americans do. Movies, books, songs, TV shows: whenever it’s liable to cause any confusion in the US market, the Yanks will make a parochial change. Here are some real [...]
Resisting a visit to the atlas – or the household Scrabble set - what three American states are spelt entirely with one-point Scrabble tiles?
SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB241 SOLUTION: Strictly Ballroom; Herbie Fully Loaded; Desperately Seeking Susan; Suddenly 30; Truly, Madly Deeply; Love Actually; You Only Live Twice, For Your Eyes Only
Last post we saluted the A-M of master clues, culled from sources faded and frayed in the year 2000. This post is the sequel, the premium gear from the same year, their answers opening with N to Z – or mostly anyway, as you’ll see.
Good luck in the cracking – but don’t rush. These babies are [...]
For twenty years, give or take, I’ve been collecting exquisite clues – the best of British and US crosswords.
Unforgivably, I’d failed to note the source puzzle for half that time, meaning I carry a swag of cryptic gems extracted from a vacuum. Their owners, the papers: I don’t know. I feel a heel but the [...]
What big hits for Roberta Flack, The Doors, The Kinks, INXS, Vanessa Amarosi, Robert Palmer, Custard, Olivia Newton-John, Crowded House, Lionel Ritchie, Jimmy Cliff and Pink Floyd each brag an adverb in their title?
SOLUTION NEXT WEEK
BB240 SOLUTION: Chicago, Traffic, Titanic
Enough Sundance. Stuff Tropfest. Hang the Golden Globes. This is Oscar time, the red-carpet moment to dole out the maximum bling. Here are the most inexplicable, most risible, most unbeatable search terms to come a-tapping at Cassowary Crossing. Angelina, the envelope please:
GOLD GOOGLES
Cricket with an eyepatch tattoo
Nitrous bushrangers
Headless waiter icon
Why has god given a bicuspid [...]
Landlocked Vikings, eat your hearts out. As strange as you may seem, you haven’t won a Silver Google. This honour goes to the next weirdest array of search terms, questions and kinky phrases to usher the searcher to this blog’s door. Cue: drum roll.
SILVER GOOGLES
Mikado built-in sink
Eat a cigar
Pants down salmon
For years her cries of [...]