December 29, 2009 – Big Dave's Crossword Blog

Toughie 275

Toughie No 275 by Giovanni

On Yer Bike!

(or If you think you have 26ac, you probably haven’t!)

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

A solid start to the last week of Toughies for 2009 with Giovanni giving us his usual elegant style to test us. A nice mixture of the teasingly simple through to one clue whose answer I was almost convinced that Clued Up had got wrong until I used TEA and found an alternative that I had not heard of before. Indeed, Had I not had Clued Up today, I would have gone away thinking that I had the right answer. More of that in a while.

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DT 26123

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26123

Hints and tips by Big Dave

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BD Rating – Difficulty ** Enjoyment ***

It looks like we can look forward to a week of very gentle puzzles, if the pattern for yesterday and today is continued. Perhaps this is to be Clueless Club week!!

Gazza’s new broadband connection has broken, so I am filling in for him today (and Tilsit is doing battle with the Toughie).  [15:30 – Gazza is now back online, and all set to tackle tomorrow’s Toughie.]

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