Toughie No 346 by Firefly
Bit by bit
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
A pretty straightforward solve today and one of those rare occasions when all corners of the grid were filled at about the same pace. Three stars each pretty much sums it up – a good, solid puzzle with no fireworks but (almost) no complaints either – just a couple of things that looked marginal; 16d but only for pedantic reasons, and 17a which looks a little wrong.
I did notice that several clues made use of initial letters; it didn’t grate, but as the puzzle went on these became easier to spot as I was half expecting them.
Favourites are in blue.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2533
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *****
Less difficult than last week, but I think still a notch harder than most of the puzzles written in the early days of Brian Greer’s spell as the Sunday setter. Most interest here is probably in the two long answers, but there’s plenty to talk about elsewhere.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26228
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
I thought that this Giovanni puzzle was on the hard side with two answers (25a and 24d) that I’d never heard of (although, to be fair, both were reachable from the checking letters and wordplay). However, I did have to look up the meanings of both, which is fine if you have reference books and Google handy, but not so fine if you’re trying to solve the puzzle on the move. What do you think? – as always we’d love to hear your views.
For those who need to see an answer or two, they are here between the curly brackets under the relevant clue – just select the space between the brackets to reveal.
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Rufus hits 1,000!
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On Bank Holiday Monday Roger “Rufus” Squires has his 1000th puzzle published in the Daily Telegraph. To mark the occasion there is an article about him on page 29 of today’s paper. If you can’t get the paper, you can read the article here, just click the picture of Roger:
Congratulations Rufus – and a thousand thank yous for mentioning Big Dave’s Crossword Blog in the article!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26223
A full review by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Although there are a number of weakish clues, this prize puzzle is not too bad.
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Toughie No 345 by Giovanni
Enjoyable Stuff
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Apologies for the lateness, a variety of reasons, I’m afraid.
A Curate’s Egg of a puzzle today with a fair smattering of new from our Friday Favourite. There were some clues I liked, but one or two that I thought not up his usual high standard. I’m not keen on the grid, as there’s only one way into each corner.
As usual, you can have your say after the blog, and you can mark the puzzle using our star system.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26227
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
A much better puzzle today from one of Thursday’s mystery setters. I almost feel deprived as there is nothing much to complain about!
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Toughie No 344 by MynoT
Alphabet Spaghetti
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
MynoT always has something clever in his puzzles and, having failed to notice the message around the periphery in his last puzzle, I was determined to spot the trick this time. He does give us a good hint in 6a – as well as producing a pangram containing all 26 letters, he has placed each letter in alphabetical order in the answers, so that 6a-26a in turn contain A-M and 1d-21d contain N-Z. As I usually do with MynoT’s puzzles, I found this one tough going, with my man Chambers on overtime, but there was a sense of satisfaction when the final answer went in.
Let us know what you thought of it in a comment.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26226
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
For me this was a harder than usual puzzle from Jay. The Northeast corner caused most problems, but as is usual in such cases, it’s difficult, in retrospect, to see why.
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Toughie No 343 by Warbler
Sic Transit Gloria Mundi Tuesday!
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Today’s enjoyable romp with Warbler was not over-taxing, but did include what were, for me, a couple of new words.
Please 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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