If a punchy thinker is Sockrates, and a giant jail is a titanick, can you insert a new K behind a C to make nine more ‘partickular’ puns? You have each neo-word’s length. 1/ Odd kiss (9) 2/ Point with a rod (12) 3/Graduate from Hogwarts (12) 4/ Indulgent cards (9) 5/ Snooker story-teller (10) 6/ Extravagant pin [...]
Since GATE ends most scandals, does that make an extravagant scandal a PROFLIGATE? Or a seabird scandal a FRIGATE? So what GATES involve: 1/ Quartz 2/ Apartheid 3/ Stand-ins 4/ Toothpaste 5/ Matthew Flinders 6/ Pebbles 7/ Cops (2 answers) 8/ Breeding (2 answers) 9/ Farm-watering (2) SOLUTION NEXT WEEK BB270 SOLUTION: Pat Cash, Lionel Rose, Shane Warne, Shane Heal, Lleyton Hewitt, Reg [...]
We’ve disguised notable Aussie sportsmen – past and present – by mixing their initial with their surname. GLOBE, say equals Brett Ogle. Can you tackle all ten? 1/ chaps 2/ loser 3/ answer 4/ shale 5/ whittle 6/ earrings 7/ manhood 8/ morsel 9/ opiners 10/ cornets SOLUTION NEXT WEEK BB269 SOLUTION: Ann Sanders, Sandra Sully, Deborah Knight, Chris Bath, Ellen Fanning, Natarsha Belling, [...]
Answer to each clue below is the surname of a female newsreader, or anchorwoman, on Australian TV. 1/ Smoothing tools 2/ Defile 3/ Chess piece 4/ It may have four claws 5/ Cooling 6/ Bird-proofing Felix? 7/ Curry-cooking chef? 8/ Stern playwright?! SOLUTION NEXT WEEK BB268 SOLUTION: Black/White, Serious/Twitty, Sweet/Fowl, Hill/Valli, Rush/Cruise, Lette/Barr, Penn/Cobb, Cross/Gaye, Rieu/Crowe, Bloom/Dye, Speed/Downer, Sharp/Blunt
Can you provide two opposite surnames for each of the dozen duos below? Daryl & Shelley, say, is SOMERS and WINTERS. (As you see, spelling is flexible.) 1/ Conrad & Patrick 2/ Yahoo & Conway 3/ Gary & Artemis 4/ Damon & Frankie 5/ Tom & Geoffrey 6/ Kathy & Natalie 7/ Sean & Ty 8/ Christopher & Marvin 9/ Andre [...]
Using TRIAD & ERROL – trial & error – can you tweak a letter per word to make a dozen familiar couplings? No names or proper nouns are enlisted. croak & digger lax & older spin & boxes slam & tackle coop & chance rubble & squeal weak & gear bank & fine shop & [...]
Revolver is one example, where you flip the first trio of letters to make the phrase’s last three. These nine clues point to more ‘revolver’ examples, where always the block of three opening letters is spun to form the finale. Exam’s period (4-5) Blew up (9) Aromatic herb (8) Court divider (6,3) Litre’s realm (6,6) ASIO [...]
Can you mangle MACKINTOSH to make two boys? Or drop the H to fashion far from waterproof apparel? Or stir an S into MACKINTOSH to create two organs – or a famous actor and a TV genre? SOLUTION NEXT WEEK BB263 SOLUTION: Pillbox (bill), frustrate (surf), advised (side), duplicity (clip), shadowy (dash), downsize (snow), ginseng (sign), [...]
Shuffle a board-type (such as ‘shuffle’) to complete each word below. A shuffled DART, say, converts leo(4) into leo-TARD, while a tweaked KEY turns che(3) into che-EKY. p(4)ox (4)trate adv(4) du(4)ity (4)owy d(4)ize (4)eng fat(4)t (5)og (5)ote b(5)ead rej(6) SOLUTION NEXT WEEK BB262 SOLUTION: Spear, slide, gang, wedding, fishing and crash can all precede TACKLE.
What one word, salvaged from one of the phrases below, can follow each of the six other words fished from the other six phrases to make six new phrases? spear gun water slide tackle box gang war diamond wedding fly fishing train crash SOLUTION NEXT WEEK BB261 SOLUTION: Planet name, cycle park, nasal talk, phony [...]