Toughie No 1038 by Shamus
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
I found a lot of the wordplay in this puzzle to be over-convoluted.
Month: August 2013
DT 27267
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27267
Hints and tips by Deep Threat
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BD Rating – Difficulty */** – Enjoyment ***
Good morning from South Staffs, where the sun is trying to break through a layer of cloud.
For me this was just on the border between * and ** difficulty, with just a couple of slightly unusual words tipping it towards **.
DT 27266
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27266
Hints and tips by Libellule
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
I struggled with parts of this, this morning, not helped by putting the more obvious (to me) but wrong ending to the first word at 31a.
ST 2706 (Hints)
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2706 (Hints)
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the more difficult clues and provide hints for them.
NTSPP – 185
NTSPP – 185
A Puzzle by Alchemi
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DT 27265 (Hints)
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27265 (Hints)
Big Dave’s Crossword Club
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As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, an assortment of clues, including some of the more difficult ones, have been selected and hints provided for them.
Toughie 1037
Toughie No 1037 by Elgar
Word-Sums
(or Never Decreasing Circles)
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
Greetings from the Calder Valley. Just when you think you can relax and sleep easy, over the hill comes the tramping of hobnailed boots, and Elgar’s back to drive you berserk. And it’s probably my favourite puzzle this year, I think. This time, our Evil Genius is undoubtedly at his most devious. I like cross-referential puzzles; at one time the Guardian used to feature one most weeks, usually by Araucaria, but now you don’t see them as often. This is a thing of beauty to be treasured. We should be giving out badges saying “I cracked Toughie 1037”
A mind-bending mixture of evil word play and that little extra to have you going round in circles. I’m not going to spoil the fun at the moment, but just ask you to persevere and stretch your brain a little. Even BD was stretched formatting this beast to go here as well. After starting by solving the anagram at 17d/28, I went off looking for the categories associated with the phrase. Wrong!
Because of the nature of the puzzle, some of the answers make up the clues so where they appear in the blog, they have been set so that they have to be highlighted as well, so it doesn’t spoil your solving.
DT 27264
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27264
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
It’s Friday so it must be Giovanni. I thought that this was one of his more straightforward puzzles – do let us know what you thought.
Continue reading “DT 27264”
DT 27259
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27259
A full review by gnomethang
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Morning All!. We had a reasonably tricky puzzle this week but it was one that I enjoyed with some well disguised definitions.
Toughie 1036
Toughie No 1036 by Elkamere
Hints and tips by Bufo
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
The gimme at 1 across proved not to be typical of the puzzle because I found it slow-going after that. I had trouble reconciling one or two definitions but thought the puzzle was an enjoyable challenge