October 24, 2014 – Big Dave's Crossword Blog

Toughie 1281

Toughie No 1281 by Elgar

Chaos is come again

Hints and tips by Fred and Ginger

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

Greetings from the Locarno Ballroom, Rhyl. Your terpsichorean twosome are running a Teach Granny to Dance session.  Fred’s really proud of Ginger’s endeavours in the recent Times Crossword Championship, though he suspects she’s struck Notabilis off her Christmas Card list!

Anyway, in between dancing sessions we tackled today’s Elgar and it is a lot tougher than most Toughies seem to be at the moment, though Elgar isn’t in full Toughie mood. Very enjoyable and no detectable theme, although a couple of pairs of answers are connected.

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DT 27629

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27629

Hints and tips by Deep Threat

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BD Rating – Difficulty **Enjoyment ***

Good morning from South Staffs on an overcast, grey and drizzly morning.

A rather strange feeling to this puzzle from Giovanni, in that it felt quite tricky while I was solving it, with some interesting pieces of wordplay, but the clock on the Telegraph site told me I’d finished comfortably within ** time. It will be interesting to see what others have made of it.

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DT 27624

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27624

A full review by crypticsue

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BD Rating – Difficulty **Enjoyment ***

This puzzle was published on Saturday, 18th October 2014

This Cephas puzzle was solved on the High Speed train to London on Saturday morning.  Later in the day, it turned out that our setter and I both achieved the same position in our respective heats in the Times Crosswords Championships, which must mean something but neither of us is quite sure what!

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