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.
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53.740718-2.012274
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.
My favourite clues are shown in blue – how do they compare with yours?
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.
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53.408488-2.149293
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.
To see the answers, highlight the space between the curly brackets. Your own thoughts on this crossword, can be entered below. I do enjoy reading them.
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Toughie No 296 by Kcit
It’s all Latin and Greek to me
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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!
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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.
As usual, feel free to 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.
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52.254523-2.266838
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.
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52.254523-2.266838
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26153
Hints and tips by Gazza
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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.
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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.
The answers are hidden within the curly brackets. They will show up if you highlight the white space. The idea is that when you don’t have the answer to a particular clue when you visit here, you don’t see the solution unintentionally. Pointed tips follow so you can have a further stab at the clues and try to solve the clue yourself and derive the joy of discovery.
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13.06041680.249634
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.
Don’t forget that you can give your assessment of the puzzle. Five stars if you thought it was great, one if you hated it, four, three or two if it was somewhere in between.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Friday, 5th February.
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52.254523-2.266838
Big Dave announces the launch of the Clueless Club’s own Website
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To celebrate the first birthday of the blog I have set up a twitter-style blog for the present, past and aspiring members of the Clueless Club. … Continue reading