Toughie No 395 by Giovanni
Sounds of the Sixties
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
You never quite know which Giovanni is going to turn up when you tackle one of his Toughies. Having said that, it didn’t take me long to realise that I was in for a struggle today. The usual smattering of religious references and (almost – see 24a) impeccable cluing produced an excellent puzzle.
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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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26303
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
Two clues turned this Shamus puzzle, for me, from a 3* to a 4* for difficulty – 14a which was the last to go in and which I’d have got much quicker if I’d realised earlier that it contained the one letter necessary to turn the puzzle into a pangram, and 30a which I made much more difficult by foolishly writing in 23d as a noun rather than a verb. Let us know how you got on in a comment.
If you need to see the answers, they are hidden between the brackets under the clues. Just drag your cursor through the white space between the brackets to reveal one.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26302
Hints and tips by Libellule
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
One of Rufus’ easier crosswords today – I think. If I hadn’t initially put Victoria in at 2d it would have been a “one or two stopper” to quote Prolixic. But that still doesn’t stop it from being entertaining and a fun crossword to do.
If the hints don’t help, just highlight the space in the curly brackets to reveal the answer.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2546 (Hints)
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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Another excellent puzzle from Virgilius – enjoy!
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.
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Friday, 30th July.
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NTSPP – 024
A puzzle by Anax
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One of Anax’s fortes is his ability to create clues that seamlessly merge definition, wordplay and link words. Looking at one of his clues you can never sure where one part of the clue ends and the other begins. In today’s cracker of a puzzle (pun intended), this ability comes to the fore with so many good clues it is difficult to pick favourites. Ones that I particularly enjoyed for the wordplay or surface reading are highlighted in blue.
There is a theme in this crossword. A number of the clues rely on definitions that are not given in the clues themselves but are defined by the wordplay in the clue (not the answer) to 22d.
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Not the Saturday Prize Puzzle – 024
A Puzzle by Anax
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Welcome to the twenty fourth in our series of weekly puzzles.
This week we have another excellent puzzle from Anax.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26301 (Hints)
Big Dave’s Saturday Crossword Club
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You will probably have gathered by now that the Wedding of the Year was held yesterday – hence the hints being a bit late.
This was me and the missus yesterday (taken by Tilsit):
And this is the happy couple:
I’ve added a few other pics to the facebook page.
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Toughie No 394 by Elgar
Here Comes The Groom
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
I have been asked to do today’s blog because Big Dave and several other bloggers are off to London to celebrate Elgar’s wedding. Elgar obviously doesn’t want the rest of us to have an easy time either. I found this very difficult and well worthy of being described as a toughie. In the end I did manage to finish it before having to check a couple of answers in the dictionary. There’s still the odd bit of wordplay that I haven’t quite sorted out and I await enlightenment. And I wonder whether I’ve missed any thematic material.
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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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2545
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
A pretty straightforward puzzle after the two thematic Sundays. Not much excitement on the face of it, but we still get very precise clues, and a little bit of novelty at 20A.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26300
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
If last week’s Giovanni was a pussycat then this one has considerably sharper teeth. It may not be a lion but it’s at least a cheetah. But it is a well-behaved cheetah with Giovanni’s usual impeccable clueing. Tell us what you think of it in a comment!
As always the answers are hidden between the brackets under the clues. Highlight the white space between the brackets to reveal.
I’m posting this a little earlier than usual because I’m keen to get to grips with the Toughie to find out what Elgar has provided for us on this auspicious occasion.
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