Toughie No 240 by Notabilis
The Iceman Cometh
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
For some reason I really struggled on both the crossword and on deriving the word play when I was doing the crossword and also when I was writing the blog, and only finished the blog with a little help from Gazza.
Not the sort of Toughie I usually expect to deal with on a Tuesday. However it was enjoyable, and had a number of great clues such as 5d for example. I was particularly pleased when I finished it.
Please let us know what you think via a comment.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26070
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Regular solvers will recognise the style of today’s setter, and he has produced another puzzle to make you think and make you smile.
For those who want to see the answers, they are hidden inside the curly brackets under each clue – just highlight the white space inside the brackets to reveal them.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26069
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
You know just what to expect from the Monday Maestro, and once again he delivers. Rufus is universally recommended by all in Crosswordland as the best setter for those new to cryptic puzzles. This is a relatively easy one but a pleasure to solve.
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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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2507 – Hints
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Another delightful Sunday prize puzzle – I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
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 will be published at 12.00 on Friday, 30th October (Peter Biddlecombe is on holiday).
Continue reading “ST 2507 – Hints”
Anax Demo Puzzle – Discussion
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Spoiler alert – this post is to facilitate discussion of Anax’s Demo Puzzle and may contain hints and/or answers.
If you want to solve the puzzle first, don’t select “read more” below.
If you want to discuss the puzzle, then post your comments here and join in the fun!
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Anax Demo Puzzle
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Anax has kindly written an article for publication on the blog to give a top to bottom explanation of how he composed a whole puzzle. When I saw this article, my first thought was to give you all a chance to solve the puzzle yourselves. This is not a totally new puzzle – it had previously been available via a link from a now-defunct forum – but it is unlikely that you have seen it before. It is, however, towards the top end of Toughie difficulty.
It is available in three different formats: Microsoft Word, PDF and Crossword Compiler. The links for these are at the bottom of the post.
I have decided to turn off comments on this post so that anyone downloading the puzzle will not accidentally see any hints or answers – but I will set up another post to enable discussion.
Anax’s article “From the Top” will be published next Saturday, 31st October. Trust me, it is well worth the wait.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26068 – Hints
Big Dave’s Saturday Crossword Club
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment *
Stop Press – 16.00 – the view count on the blog has just hit 500.000 (in just under 9 months!)
Today I have a special treat for you. Anax has written an excellent article on how he put together a whole puzzle and at 12.00 today you will have the opportunity to solve the puzzle. I will open up a blog post for discussion of the puzzle and then next Saturday you can read the whole article, titled “From the Top”. I’m sure that even if you don’t actually solve the puzzle you will find this insight into the mind of an accomplished setter extremely interesting.
I can think of nothing polite to say about today’s Prize puzzle, so I won’t bother.
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, 29th October.
Continue reading “DT 26068 – Hints”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2506
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Much easier than last week for me, but there’s plenty to see. First, a bit of symmetry – half-turn rotational symmetry still applies when you’ve drawn in little bars to mark word breaks in multi-word answers.
Legend: (act)* indicates an anagram of act
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Toughie No 239 by Shamus
Hints and tips by Anax
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
A four-star difficulty rating? Well, I struggled, so I can only give a personal assessment – seasoned Toughie solvers may have different tales to tell. Oddly, the solve itself didn’t take very long, but I was left with a clutch of clues whose wordplay I couldn’t fathom, and for that reason alone I’ve notched the enjoyment level down from what could easily have been 4 or 5. Apart from those difficulties this puzzle offered some tough, imaginative clueing and a handful of real corkers. Kudos to the setter, too, for not being put off by awkward Js and Qs. There’s just one quibble at 23Dn.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26067
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
I look forward to the Friday puzzle, but I must admit to feeling a bit disappointed with this one. There’s one amusing clue at 7d, but otherwise I thought that it was fairly mundane stuff, compared to the usual Friday fare. Do you agree or do you think I’m being excessively curmudgeonly? – let me know via a comment.
As usual, if you want to see an answer you’ll find it hidden between the curly brackets – just highlight the white space to reveal it.
Continue reading “DT 26067”