July 9, 2009 – Big Dave's Crossword Blog

DT 25972 – Review

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25972 – Review

A full analysis by Big Dave

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BD Rating – Difficulty **** Enjoyment ***

Peter Biddlecombe is taking a well-deserved break this week, but will be back next week.

Saturday puzzles recently have not deserved the accolade of prize puzzles, but this one was a lot better.  I had a few minor grumbles,which are outlined in the review.

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Toughie 178

Toughie No 178 by Messinae

Just Like That?  Not a Lot!

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BD Rating – Difficulty *** Enjoyment *** – (CluedUp Site Difficulty **************)

Very irritating today.  Not the puzzle, but the blooming CluedUp website.  I logged in to do the puzzle and finished it, and was chugging along writing the blog.  Funnily enough at the time I thought that it didn’t feel like a Messinae puzzle.  Visited this lovely site and then saw Gazza’s blog on the same puzzle!  Checked in to Clued-Up again and got a different puzzle!

So we start again, a bit late!  This was a really nice puzzle to solve (unlike his current fiendish Listener puzzle, which is a s*d!) and contains one of the best clues I have seen in a while.  However I think there’s a problem with one of the other clues.

Off we go, let me have your thoughts below.

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DT 25976

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25976

Hints and tips by Gazza

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BD Rating – Difficulty *** Enjoyment ***

When I solved this puzzle I was not overly impressed with it, but writing the review has made me appreciate some of the individual clues more, and I ended up quite liking it.
As usual the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets – just select the white space to reveal them.
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