Toughie No 225 by Notabilis
Taken at the Flood
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
There’s a bit of a theme involving water and leaks in this puzzle by one of my favourite Toughie setters. Getting the answer to one of his clues is often only the first step – you then have an enjoyable battle with the wordplay to try to understand it fully. This puzzle does not disappoint, with some lovely twists.
This week’s Toughies are looking good so far – let’s hope the trend continues! We’d love to get a comment from you, whether containing bouquets or brickbats.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26047
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
Tilsit is taking a few days off to attend to other matter, but don’t worry he’s not unwell and should be back next week. Today’s puzzle is one of those that will probably split the opinions into two. The more experienced solvers will dismiss it, and the less experienced will be happy that they have finished it.
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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Toughie No 224 by Micawber
Result happiness!
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
We have been having some nice easy Tuesday Toughies for a few weeks now…. Well its time to wake up and smell the coffee. A really enjoyable crossword, with some great surface readings and clues to make you smile. Getting some of the longer answers early on will help.
Feel free to leave a comment.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26046
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Regular solvers will doubtless recognise the style of today’s setter – all single-word answers, a good variety of clue types and few proper nouns. It was a good workout with some smiles along the way.
As usual the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets, so that you do not see them by accident; if you do want to see one, just highlight the white space inside the brackets.
All comments are welcome, whether from regular contributors or first timers.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26045
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
It was nice to get going on this typical Rufus puzzle after my earlier brush with DT 49. I had missed the wonderful cryptic definitions that are to be found here.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 49
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
I managed to pick this up from CluedUp when I asked for today’s puzzle. You can get to it by entering 49 into the puzzle number in the Search Puzzle Archive on the main crossword puzzles page. You will find that it is dated today! It also uses exactly the same grid as DT 26045 – coincidence?
Maybe it was just the biorhythms, but I found this to be a little harder than the average Monday puzzle. There are enough charades today for a whole TV program (for those who remember “Give Us a Clue”).
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2503
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
If I were to do only one of the Telegraph’s regular puzzles each week it would be this one. Worth the cost of the newspaper on its own and certainly worth the cost of a week’s subscription to CluedUp
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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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26044 – Hints
Big Dave’s Saturday Crossword Class
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment: *****
Yet another relatively easy Saturday prize puzzle, but this one is very different. I spotted a theme within the first few clues, but imagine my surprise when I realised the extent of that theme. Suffice it to say that four of the answers are to be found in the first sentence of the About page of this blog! How can I complain about the names and places in this puzzle when most of them relate to myself!
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. A full review of this puzzle by Tilsit will be published at 12.00 on Thursday, 1st October.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2502
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
A fairly straightforward puzzle, with one very minor possible slip-up by the setter at 26D.
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Toughie No 223
About as Tough as a Toughie can be!
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment *****
Following some recent comments, I would like to reiterate that this blog, like millions of other blogs on the World Wide Web, expresses the personal views of the various contributors. Just as with music, some people love a particular artist and others hate them (I personally can’t stand Elton John or Rap music). Should you disagree with those views, you are more than welcome to comment; I have yet to refuse a comment other than spam, and these are trapped by a filter from Akismet. If you have not yet read the Disclaimer then please do.
Today’s puzzle is a breath of fresh air for those of us that are avid Ximeneans and like our Toughies to be tough but fair. Is it too tough in places? Probably. But then we deserve this kind of challenge from time to time.
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