Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30240
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from Almoradí on another chilly but sunny morning. Forecast is for 21°C later today so that will be pleasant and then it’s high twenties going into next week. Perhaps spring has sprung!
A pretty normal Monday puzzle today. It’s mostly benign but there’s a couple of head scratchers and a few bits of complicated wordplay. Overall it’s very enjoyable as is usual from this setter.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30234
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from Almoradí, heart of the Vega Baja on a beautiful sunny, but chilly, morning. The move went off well and in a few hours I’ll have been in the new place for a whole week.
Today’s puzzle is the usual Monday fare but I thought it a tad trickier than some Mondays have been. However, that could just be me having an off morning having had a very busy week sorting out the new home. It will be interesting to see what you all make of it.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30216
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Hola for the last time from the village of El Saladar. You’ll have Falcon in the chair next week and on the Monday after that you’ll have him again because on that day pommette and I are moving house. The village is a little isolated so we’re moving to an apartment near the centre of Almoradí, just a short walk from loads of bars, restaurants, shops, town square and the health centre (you can see my order of priorities there!). So, my next blog will be from a new home!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30204
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from the Vega Baja on the coldest morning of the year to date. It was a shivering 3°C at 0800 this morning! Hopefully it will warm up a bit after 0930 when the suns gets over our rear wall.
“Today’s puzzle is a typical Monday offering in that it’s very enjoyable and mostly quite benign, but it has a couple of stings in the tail and a bit of GK needed”. That’s what I wrote in the preamble to my last blog and it’s equally relevant today so it may as well stay. I really enjoyed the tussle with this one and look forward to hearing how you got on with it.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30192
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from the Vega Baja on a typical January morning – sunny but chilly. Hopefully things will warm up a bit as the day goes on.
Today’s puzzle is a typical Monday offering in that it’s very enjoyable and mostly quite benign, but it has a couple of stings in the tail and a bit of GK needed.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30180
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Hola from the Vega Baja. You may remember I said last Monday that I was off to Benidorm for Christmas and that’s where I am. Chris Lancaster sent me an advance copy of today’s puzzle so I actually wrote this blog last Thursday! He sent me the puzzle from today’s paper but I’d rather he’d sent me the football results!!!
A fairly benign puzzle today from Campbell but 19a nearly had me beat. Never heard of it and it took about ten minutes of Googling to get an answer! There’s eight clues involving anagrams and two lurkers so you should get off to a good start. I’ll be interested to see what you all make of 19a.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30174
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty */** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from the Vega Baja. Christmas will be over by the next Monday puzzle so may I wish all our readers a very merry one and best wishes for the new year too. We’re off to Benidorm again this year after staying home for a couple of years due to Covid restrictions.
Our Monday Maestro is on good form today with an enjoyable puzzle at the benign end of his difficulty range. A couple of bits of GK required in 8a and 16d but if you know it the puzzle is really only * difficulty. If you don’t know it you’ll need a bit of investigoogling but it shouldn’t be too hard to get to the answers. There are eight clues involving anagrams so you should be able to get off to a good start.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30162
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty **/*** – Enjoyment ***
Hola from the Vega Baja. Another chilly morning but at least it’s sunny with no wind.
Campbell appears to have taken a leaf out of RayT’s book this week and stretched a few of his synonyms a bit. Still, it was the usual Monday elegance and not too difficult. Seven clues involving anagrams should give you a good start if you don’t have the general knowledge required in 24a the answer is easily guessable from the checkers.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30150
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Hola from Vega Baja on a slightly chilly morning. However we’re forecast to get 23°C this afternoon which will be nice if it happens.
Today’s crossword needs a bit of general knowledge but it’s mostly OK. There’s a few anagrams dotted about the grid so I think most of you will be fine. The third difficulty star is because of the GK required.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30138
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Hola from Vega Baja where the warm autumn seems to be coming to an end. I had to dig out some long trousers on Saturday evening, which is something I haven’t done since the middle of May, but it’s still pleasantly warm in the afternoons.
Maybe it’s just me but I thought today’s puzzle was a tad trickier than the usual Monday fare but looking at the clock I see it didn’t actually take me very long. Four anagrams and three double definitions give plenty of ways in so I don’t think many of you will need these hints.
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