Those of you who look at the Times for the Times blog will know that I’ve just started a new job. I can now tell you that I’ve been appointed on a trial basis to edit the crosswords in the Sunday Times. I’m obviously very pleased and know that many of you will be very [...]
Author Archives: petebiddlecombe
ST 2567
December 30, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2567
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** - Enjoyment *****
Christmas is always special in crossword land, but your Sunday setter has excelled himself here. The central 15-letter answer is “A Christmas Carol”, and there’s other material about 3 different Christmas Carols – Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Good King Wenceslas, and the Dickens book of the same name. And there’s heaps of other Christmas material too – 12 answers by my reckoning. Two things to wonder about: If a puzzle referring to a carol with the words “on the feast of Stephen” was printed on the 19th of December, what’s on the 26th? And if next week’s puzzle is Christmas-related, will he have anything left for next year?
A very Merry Christmas to all readers, bloggers and setters from me – as well as from everyone else here.
ST 2566
December 17, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2566
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** - Enjoyment *****
Posting in a bit of haste as now much busier than I used to be, so no link to Shenandoah for 25A. If you imagine the same introduction as most of the ones for the last year, you won’t be wrong! I liked the smell of the sea at the end of the Acrosses.
ST 2565
December 10, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2565
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** -Enjoyment *****
Another very enjoyable Sunday puzzle – I liked the 200-year musical leap in time between the two long across clue/answer combos
ST 2564
December 3, 2010 – 1:54 pm
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2564
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** - Enjoyment *****
Here’s a puzzle using one of those “natural” 15×15 grids with words of 5, 7, and 9 letters. These have the potential to include some very familiar content, but although there are a few old favourite answers here, there are plenty of less frequent visitors to the grid too, and enough difficulty to make it a relatively tricky Sunday Telegraph puzzle for me, even with 3 hidden word clues.
ST 2563
November 26, 2010 – 1:53 pm
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2563 A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***** More high class fun. It’s a bit dull on [...]
Sloggers and Betters 7
November 19, 2010 – 4:24 pm
Sloggers and Betters 7
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I’m announcing this rather later than usual, for which I apologise. For two reasons, S & B 7 will take place on Wednesday 1st December.
ST 2562
November 19, 2010 – 3:58 pm
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2562
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** - Enjoyment *****
A puzzle that I found very easy , finishing in the kind of time I can’t quite seem to manage for the Times puzzles any more. I enjoyed 3D in particular, as a lover of the rich orchestral music of “first-class second-rate composer” Richard Strauss. I also enjoyed the reference to slightly more recent music at 23A.
Apologies for this being late – there’s lots going on at the Times xwd website at the moment, including leaderboards done rather better than at the Telegraph.
ST 2561
November 12, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2561
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** - Enjoyment *****
Nothing written next to this one on the day – let’s see what emerges as I write up the explanations. As ever: lots of classy clues, including three special hidden words. And a possible indication that BG has changed his mind about a minor cruciverbal controversy.
A quick plug for a bit of my own work: my second Church Times puzzle, edited by Don Manley, is available here. 14 of the 28 clues are my own, the rest are changed, anything from slightly to completely.
ST 2560
November 5, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2560
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** - Enjoyment ****
Not much obvious high drama in the clues this week, though three hidden words is a bit unusual. Just (just?) the usual impeccable clues, and a very kind grid for the solver. The use of two commercial names among the clues and answers is a bit unusual for a British crossword, though the Americans are much less shy about this. Memorable mistake by a famous solver in the final stages of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament: Black and white killer [ O??? ] = OREO (correct answer: ORCA).
ST 2559
October 29, 2010 – 12:08 pm
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2559
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** - Enjoyment *****
I found this puzzle pretty difficult for a Sunday, or at least I got badly stuck on two crossing pairs – 1A/4D, and 25A/21D. But I enjoyed the chance to use a picture taken on my holiday, which I was already intending to send to the setter. The difficulty meant that while I was still trying to speed-solve, I entered 3 answers without fully understanding the wordplay – 15A, 17A, 13D.
ST 2557
October 15, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2557
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** - Enjoyment *****
A puzzle solved when I got home from the rigours of the toughest Times Crossword Championship final I can remember. However, now that I’ve looked up the results from 2000, which I remember as my best final in both results and speed terms, it turns out that my winning average time was just over 8 minutes a puzzle. Mark Goodliffe’s winning time on Sunday equated to 8:22 a puzzle.
NTSPP – 035 (Comments)
October 9, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Not the Saturday Prize Puzzle – 035
A Puzzle by Biddle
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Welcome to the thirty fifth in our series of weekly puzzles.
This week we have a puzzle from Biddle that has a dig at my grumbles about certain answers that used to appear regularly in older Saturday Prize puzzles!
ST 2556
October 8, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2556
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** - Enjoyment *****
Solved on the way to the pub meeting with Brian Greer and various setters and solvers – the first of a batch of puzzles on the train journey. Very little scribble on the copy so anything I say after this is added after I write the explanations below.
It’s the usual – a couple of those all-in-ones he just can’t stop producing, and a good mixture of answers, elegantly clued. No epic hidden word so I’ll expect one at least 13 letters long next week.
ST 2555
October 1, 2010 – 12:00 pm
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2555
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** - Enjoyment ****
This report will appear a couple of days before I meet Brian Greer for the first time since my first win in the Times Crossword Championship in 2000, which marked the end of his reign as crossword editor and the beginning of Mike Laws’s short spell in the job. So I’m pretty well guaranteed to be nice about this one.
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