Big Dave's Telegraph Crossword Blog

Toughie 299

Big Dave — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:00:20 +0000

Toughie No 299 by Notabilis

Circuits and Bumps

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

Once again an excellent puzzle from Notabilis (who was one of those present last Saturday). This one took quite a while to unravel, but as ever the clues are honest and fair.

DT 26159

gazza — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:00:42 +0000

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26159 Hints and tips by Gazza + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ** I have to admit to being somewhat disappointed by today’s puzzle. The cryptic definitions aren’t that brilliant and some of the surface readings don’t make a great deal of sense. You may well disagree, and, whether you do or not, we’d love to get a comment from you. As always, the answers are hidden between the curly brackets under the relevant clue – just drag your cursor through the white space between the brackets to reveal.

DT 26158

Rishi — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:00:33 +0000

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26158 Hints and tips by Rishi + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + BD Rating - Difficulty *** - Enjoyment *** A none-too-difficult puzzle except for a couple of clues such as 31a and 16d that require a literary background and 2d and 4d that are from ancient history. As usual answers are within the curly brackets and to see them you have to drag the cursor across the white space. Leave a comment telling us what you thought. You can also add your assessment by selecting from one to five stars at the bottom of the post.

ST 2522 – Hints

Big Dave — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 02:00:47 +0000

Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2522 - Hints

Hints and tips by Big Dave

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

I'm still recovering from yesterday's excesses, and still away from home struggling to master my sister's laptop so this will be a very brief post. Tilsit and I both enjoyed the meet (I put that bit in to annoy Giovanni - see the Crossword Centre Forum) and had a nice day (I put that bit in to annoy Elgar - see the same forum). We were particularly pleased to see Prolixic and Kcit - the latter being over here from New Zealand.

ScrewedUp News – Feb 06

Libellule — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:34:10 +0000

ScrewedUp News - Feb 06

Edition 22

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Its been months (Nov 29 2009 to be exact) since we had a ScrewedUp News post. However there is one for today. On the "Home" you have a list of puzzles, unfortunately the Quick GK (132) is last weeks. But don't despair you can find this Saturdays (133) if you navigate to "Crossword Puzzles" and you can now play or print Quick 133 which is really the Quick GK. The normal Quick (26157) can be accessed via the "Home" page. If you do play the Quick GK, the maximum number of points is only 150, not the the normal 450 you would expect. Confused - I know I am!

Parson’s Green

Big Dave — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 08:56:30 +0000

Cruciverbalists' Congress

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Tilsit and I will be among those present in the White Horse pub in Parson's Green, London from 11am till late. Drop in and have a drink with us if you are in town today.

DT 26157 – Hints

gazza — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 08:00:21 +0000

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26157 – Hints Hints by Gazza + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + BD Rating – Difficulty *** - Enjoyment ** Big Dave is researching the latest developments in crossword theory today, so I’ve put together a few hints for the prize puzzle. BD and Tilsit have complained often that the Saturday prize crossword, which should be the flagship product for the Telegraph, is not up to the standard of the other quality papers, and all I can say is that I agree. Leave a comment with your views, and if you’re really stuck on a clue let me know and I’ll see what I can do. But, please don’t put any full or partial answers in your comments or they may be censored. As usual, the full review of this puzzle will appear next Thursday, after the deadline for submitting entries has passed.

ST 2521

petebiddlecombe — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:00:12 +0000

Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2521

A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe

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BD Rating - Difficulty *** - Enjoyment ****

I found this puzzle rather harder than some recent Sunday ones, and it took me about twice as long. I'm pretty sure that 23D was one of my last answers, and 25A took quite a while too. I also put in a dud answer at 18A. So if we had multiple pictures, I'd be using the dunce's cap one which makes too-frequent appearances at Times for the Times.

Toughie 298

tilsit — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:00:10 +0000

Toughie No 298 by Shamus A Drawn Out Saga + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + BD Rating – Difficulty *** - Enjoyment **** Really, really sorry but an unexpected trip to A&E caused me a huge amount of chaos. Everything is OK now, but it has meant that I missed posting deadlines quite badly, so sincere apologies. - T A nice puzzle to end the week from one of my favourite setters. Good solid clues that do exactly as they say on the tin with 1 across quite a clever clue that may need a bit of explaining, as well as a couple of new words on me. 13 across has baffled me a bit. A number of the clues are of the “whole thing defines it, and the clue is made up of the indications” type and are nicely constructed. Hope to see some of you at Parsons Green. As usual, feel free to have your say after the review.

DT 26156

gazza — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:00:54 +0000

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26156 Hints and tips by Gazza + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment **** We have another fine puzzle from Giovanni, with his usual impeccable clueing (well, with the exception of 20d). My initial instinct was to give it three stars for difficulty, but it does contain a couple of constructs which may be new to some solvers and Clued Up is currently showing it with five stars, so I’ve compromised with four. Let me know, via a comment, whether you agree or not! For new readers, the answers are hidden in the white space between the brackets under the clue. Drag your cursor from left to right between the brackets to reveal.

3D Puzzles

tilsit — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:00:15 +0000

The Monday Maestro in 3D?!

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One of the setters universally appreciated around these parts is Rufus, our Monday Maestro and if you would like to see him in a slightly different format and help some very good causes, here's your chance.

Last year Sirius (aka the wonderful Eric Westbrook) launched his first set of three dimensional crosswords, in calendar form, containing cryptic puzzles by setters of note. The project was a success helping to raise a large sum of money for the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB)and the BBC Children in Need Appeal (CiNA).

DT 26151

tilsit — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:00:21 +0000

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26151

Redeeming Features?

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BD Rating – Difficulty ** - Enjoyment *

A puzzle that stimulated a lot of debate on these boards last Saturday with a large number of people agreeing with Big Dave and myself that it was not one of the better puzzles and at the moment we seem to be going backwards instead of forwards in terms of quality on a Saturday. This week we have seen a very strong set of daily puzzles where the setters have worked hard to produce accessible and fair puzzles.

Contrary to popular belief, it gives me no pleasure to write about a puzzle in negative terms. I basically end up wondering that if that puzzle had been submitted to the other three main editors, would it have made their paper? The resounding answer is almost certainly not, for a variety of reasons, but the main one being on quality.

In every other paper, the Saturday puzle is the Showcase Puzzle of the week and there was stiff competition last weekend with a strong Araucaria puzzle in the Guardian and our very own Anax's wonderful (and ferociously difficult) Independent, as well as a lovely Times puzzle. This limped in some way behind even the Financial Times puzzle.

Toughie 297

Anax — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:00:29 +0000

Toughie No 297 by Firefly

A bit of 6a but no 27a

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

This was one of those puzzles where about four fifths of the answers dragged ink from the biro almost before the nib touched the paper, but there were a handful that really caused some head-scratching.

Post-solve, it became apparent just how much difference there can be between Ximenean and Libertarian clueing. If I wanted to wear my purist's hat I could say there were all sorts of wordplay indicators here that were questionable, but the comment would be irrelevant. Telegraph solvers are used to having things a certain way, and what's dodgy in some circles is perfectly acceptable here.

When Dave sends me the template for doing the write-up there are default Difficulty/Enjoyment levels of 3 stars each, and in this case I think that's about right – it's very much a straight-down-the-middle sort of puzzle.

DT 26155

Libellule — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 08:00:06 +0000

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26155

Hints and tips by Libellule

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

Quite an enjoyable crossword today, but it does seem as if we have entered into a new genre - cryptic general knowledge crosswords. There is a nice mix of clues, not just in terms of types, but also complexity and trickery which should appeal to most of us. Once again we have a dodgy anagram indicator, but I think I can live with it.

Toughie 296

gazza — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:00:22 +0000

Toughie No 296 by Kcit It's all Latin and Greek to me + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + BD Rating – Difficulty ** - Enjoyment *** Drawing a veil over 6a, I enjoyed this puzzle by Kcit which has some very clever surface readings. The more obscure references (e.g. 10a and 2d) are accompanied by straightforward wordplay, and the more difficult wordplay (e.g. 7d) comes with answers that you can guess at fairly readily before disentangling the wordplay (how many sports are there with 3-2-3 names?). As usual, we’d love to get a comment from you with your thoughts on the puzzle, the review or anything else!

DT 26154

tilsit — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 08:00:55 +0000

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26154

Hints and tips by Tilsit

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

Keeping up this week's strong set of puzzles, our Wednesday Wizard has come up with an enjoyable challenge that looks easy at first, but has one of two traps to snarl the unwary solver.

Toughie 295

Big Dave — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 10:00:41 +0000

Toughie No 295 by Cephas

Could this have been a Saturday puzzle?

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

Definitely one of the better puzzles from Cephas. I, for one, would like to see this level of puzzle being used for the Saturday Prize crossword.

Leave a comment telling us what you thought. You can also add your assessment by selecting from one to five stars at the bottom of the post.

DT 26153

gazza — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 08:00:50 +0000

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26153 Hints and tips by Gazza + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment **** We have a very entertaining puzzle from Ray T today, which I thought was a bit more difficult than usual. Let us know whether you agree or not with a comment! As always the answers are concealed, so that you cannot see them accidentally. If you want to reveal one, place your cursor inside the curly brackets under the relevant clue and drag it across the white space to the other bracket.

DT 26152

Rishi — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 08:00:51 +0000

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26152

Hints and tips by Rishi

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BD Rating - Difficulty ***/**** - Enjoyment ***

I am giving three-and-a-half stars for difficulty rating to this crossword by our Monday maestro as wordplay in many clues is decidedly not-so-easy.

ST 2521 – Hints

Big Dave — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 02:00:10 +0000

Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2521 - Hints

Hints and tips by Big Dave

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

A bit more difficult than last week's Prize puzzle, but still excellent quality.