Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30912
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Ottawa, where spring has finally arrived heralded by the budding flowers and the arrival of hockey playoff season. On Saturday, I watched two thrilling matches. In the afternoon, our professional women’s team, the Ottawa Charge, who are fighting to make the PWHL playoffs, were assessed a penalty in the final moments of a tie game against Montreal. However, despite this obstacle, the team miraculously scored a short-handed goal with 13 seconds remaining to win the game. That evening, our professional men’s team, the Ottawa Senators, down three games to nil in their first round Stanley Cup Playoff series against Toronto, scored in the eighteenth minute of overtime to stave off elimination. The sport doesn’t get any better than that.
Although X-Type told us last week he would see us “soon-ish”, it seems that this week may be too soon as the puzzle would appear to be the work of the unknown double punner who has graced this spot several times. Might there be a new Monday rotation alternating between these two setters. If so, it would be a fine pairing.
In the hints below, underlining identifies precise definitions and cryptic definitions, FODDER is capitalized, and indicators are italicized. The answers will be revealed by clicking on the ANSWER buttons.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought of the puzzle.
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Sunday Toughie No 170
by proXimal
Hints and Tips by Sloop John Bee
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I found this rather tough last night, but looking at it this morning, it all appears to be fairly clued. A Spoonerism to start and a couple of compound anagrams indicate this is proXimal. A wide field of general knowledge, from Taylor Swift and actors and actresses to ancient civilisations, tombs and geology is required. The renegade priest was new to me, but with checkers, a relatively easy anagram
We have 14a and 14d clues today and I have hinted half(ish) I may be able to give a bonus nudge if you are in need.
Your submission for the “Mythical 🖊️” is more likely to be successful, as for the 2nd day running a typo in one of the little 4 letter answers will send my entry to the bin
Here we go, Folks…
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Enigmatic Variations 1692 (Hints)
Anonymous by Ifor
Hints and tips by Phibs
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This week I thought I’d do a search on Dave Hennings’ excellent database of themed crosswords (xwdb.info) to locate earlier puzzles that had a connection with the word ‘anonymous’.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 3314 (Hints)
Hints and tips by Senf
A very good Sunday morning from Winnipeg where Springtime temperatures are fluctuating quite considerably – 20 degrees yesterday and 9 degrees forecast for Wednesday.
For me, and I stress for me, Dada almost as friendly as Cephas was yesterday! Three longish ‘uns, seven anagrams (four partials – three of three letters and one of four letters!!), one lurker (reversed), and two homophones all in an almost symmetric 27 clues; with 14 hints ‘sprinkled’ throughout the grid, you should be able to get the checkers to enable the solving of the unhinted clues. And, remember, my electronic blue pencil is at the ready and the Naughty Step is OPEN!
Candidates for favourite – 12a, 13a, 21a, 25a, 1d, 6d, 9d, and 14d.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, a number of the more difficult clues have been selected and hints provided for them.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30911 (Hints)
The Saturday Crossword Club (hosted by crypticsue)
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Toughie No 3468 by Karla
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Thanks to Karla for an enjoyable puzzle. After failing to notice his Nina in the past I remembered to look this time but failed to find one. Did you do any better? I did notice that there are a number of metals in the grid but not enough, I think, to form a theme.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30905
A full review by Rahmat Ali
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This puzzle was published on 19th April 2025
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Kolkata. A nice, straightforward Saturday puzzle from NYDK that I enjoyed solving and thereafter writing a review of the same for your kind perusal and significant feedback.
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Toughie No 3467 by Silvanus
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Silvanus is as enjoyable as always. Many thanks to him.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30909
Hints and tips by Shabbo
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
No prizes for “Guess the Setter” today – most of the hallmarks of RayT are in evidence, including sweetheart at 3d (although he is again teasing us on this one), single word solutions and brevity of clueing in the Cryptic and single word clues and solutions in the Quickie. Don’t waste one of your hard-earned loonies on this one, Senf.
If my arithmetic is correct, Ray has used just one word too many to average five words per clue. Surely we can find just one disposable word in this puzzle…?
In the blog below, the definition element of each clue has been underlined, anagrams are CAPITALISED and the crossword technique “indicator words” are in brackets. The answers are concealed under the “Click Here” buttons. Please leave a comment telling us how you got on and what you thought of the puzzle. Please also try to be positive – it’s only a bit of fun.
Many thanks to our setter and the DT Crossword Team.
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