Daily Archives: July 2, 2009

DT 25966 – Review

July 2, 2009 – 12:00 pm

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25966 – Review A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ** A pretty easy puzzle, which will have [...]

By petebiddlecombe | Posted in Crosswords, DT Cryptic Crosswords, Prize Crosswords, Saturday | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off

Toughie 174

July 2, 2009 – 12:02 am

Toughie No 174 by Firefly
Teacher…. Mother…….Secret Lover

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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **

As the warm-up man for Big Dave and his battle with Excalibur tomorrow, I am usually full of praise for the Thursday setters. I am also a big fan of Firefly in his other setting alias, but for some reason, this is just not my cup of coffee (I can’t stand tea!!). I was quite looking forward to it, but just found that some of the clues lacked the invention and difficulty that we normally get from him.

For some reason I am reminded of the end of an epsiode of The Simpsons, where they do a send-up of Stephen King’s The Shining. I had a tough night last night with the heat and lack of air, despite having all the windows open and running the risk of bats flying in. However, I was looking forward to logging in and having a good battle today, but like Homer I was disappointed and the urge to kill rises…..(actually the urge to go and have a snooze rises!)

Anyway, enough whimsy, let’s go. My basic feeling that this was probably no tougher than a normal daily puzzle. I was quite convinced for some time that there was a mistake in the grid, but then my recent stays as a guest of the NHS came to the rescue. Should Toughie puzzles have four letter anagrams?

By tilsit | Posted in Crosswords, Firefly, Toughie Crosswords | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (6)

DT 25970

July 2, 2009 – 12:01 am

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25970
Hints and tips by Gazza

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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***

Nothing too taxing today, but a pleasant challenge with a lot of nice surface readings.
As usual the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets – just select the white space to reveal them.

By gazza | Posted in Crosswords, DT Cryptic Crosswords, Thursday | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (23)