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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
I was wondering what theme MynoT was going to use next, and early clues led me to think it might be astronomy. It turned out to be something totally different!
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26333
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
I used to know where I was on Tuesdays; we had puzzles from Shamus and Ray T on alternate weeks. Then last week the schedule went berserk – not only did we have Ray T two weeks in a row, but his trademark (exclusively single-word answers) was jettisoned. So I approached this morning’s puzzle with some trepidation as to who the setter would be. Well, I’m pretty sure that it’s not by Ray T and I do think that it’s from Shamus (not least because of 5a). It only remains now for me to be proved totally wrong by a comment from the real setter!
As always we’d love to get your comments on the puzzle, the review, the weather, anything, and please don’t forget to click on one of the stars below to register how much you enjoyed it.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** - Enjoyment **
A very gentle start to the week. I don’t expect many of you to make use of the blog today!
If you really cannot work out the answer form the hint, highlight the space between the curly brackets.
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As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.
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This was an excellent puzzle from Radler with lots to get your teeth into and savour. It felt a lot like a Guardian crossword and was definitely in the Toughie spectrum. My favourite clues are shown below in blue.
There is a theme to this puzzle, alluded to by the title. Although the preamble says that finding the theme will assist with the nine themed clues, in practice, I think its is essential to find the theme to assist with solving the crossword as the definitions for some of the themed clues are very wide and would not lead you to the answers without the theme to guide you. The theme is that of royal houses.
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Welcome to the twenty ninth in our series of weekly puzzles.
This week we have another puzzle from Radler. There is an underlying theme, and working that out will help with the puzzle but is not essential.
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As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
Fitting in the answers was a struggle for many of the clues. Explaining the wordplay is even harder. Myops is one of a handful of setters worthy of the Friday Toughie slot (along with Elgar, Notabilis, Osmosis and Micawber).
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BD Rating – Difficulty * - Enjoyment *****
A very easy puzzle for me this one. Big Dave discourages bragging about solving times, so I’ll just say that in minutes and seconds this was exactly as quick for me as the Times crossword of 24th August, the quickest for me in several months if not a year or more. So in the same spirit as Craig Revel Horwood of Strictly Come Dancing, who sees no point in having a board with a 1 on it if he’s never going to use it, this gets one star for difficulty. I was going to knock off an enjoyment star on the basis that nothing this easy can be worth 5, but changed my mind when I got to 3D.
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26330
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
We have a typical Giovanni puzzle today, good clueing, a few smiles and several religious references. There’s one clue (22d) where I’m not at all sure of how it works, so any assistance on that one would be gratefully received. Whether you have any ideas on that one or not, we’d like to hear your views in a comment.
To reveal an answer just drag your cursor through the space between the brackets under the relevant clue.
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
I’m fairly neutral about this one. It was a competent enough puzzle and the clues were perfectly fair. But there was nothing about it that got me excited.
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Afternoon All!. There seemed to be an awful lot of heads and tails being cut off in this puzzle which may have made it easier for some. I personally thought that a couple of the Cryptic Definitions were a tad weak but as usual from Cephas there were a few charades that were not so easy. On the whole I found this as enjoyable as ever. I selected 3 stars for difficulty based on my head-scratching whilst mopping up the last few.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
A Greek (and Latin) influence in several of the across clues today. This puzzle, by one of our mystery setters, contains a number of hoary old chestnuts – but they are bound to be new to some!
Toughie No 412 by Osmosis
Less is More
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Although I do enjoy doing Osmosis puzzles, I think that his trademark type of clue, where the answer has to be built from lots of small bits with single letters being either added or removed, can be a bit overdone. What do you think? Tell us in a comment, and please remember to click on one of the stars at the bottom to show much you enjoyed it.
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Our setters are giving us some very enjoyable puzzles so far this week. Today Jay has given us some great clues and, in my opinion, just the right amount of anagrams, including some of those part-anagram, part-something-else clues. Didn’t take too long to solve but still great fun – ideal for when you are supposed to be getting on with the day job!!
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