Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2567 (Hints)
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.
Month: December 2010
NTSPP – 045 (Comments)
Not the Saturday Prize Puzzle – 045
A Puzzle by Isla
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Welcome to the forty fifth in our series of weekly puzzles.
Today we have a first puzzle from a new setter. Isla, neither Scottish nor female, is a fan of Chilean footballer Mauricio Isla, the 22-year-old right-back who plays for Udinese in Italy. This puzzle is on the tough side, but well-worth the effort.
DT 26427 (Hints)
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26427 (Hints)
Big Dave’s Saturday Crossword Club
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As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.
Toughie 478
Toughie No 478 by Osmosis
Hints and tips by Tilsit
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment ****
As usual, the Friday Toughie is the hardest of the week, and today’s is certainly at the top end of that scale. There were some really excellent clues, and I confess to having a few wrong answers at first, due to guessing. I had a couple of hassles with the top right corner as I struggled with the wordplay.
I suppose we have been spoiled this week with Notabilis’ excellent puzzle on Wednesday because I felt I didn’t quite enjoy this as much. I thought 6d was a bit of a weak clue and a couple of others were to me less than satisfactory. I don’t like the way punctuation is sometimes used as a device to mislead, or produce a clever surface reading.
ST 2566
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2566
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment *****
Posting in a bit of haste as now much busier than I used to be, so no link to Shenandoah for 25A. If you imagine the same introduction as most of the ones for the last year, you won’t be wrong! I liked the smell of the sea at the end of the Acrosses.
DT 26426
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26426
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
We have the usual Friday entertainment from Giovanni today. Let us know how you found it in a comment. Any errors on my part today can be put down to writing the blog at the same time as watching the cricket from Perth (a bit of a setback for England!).
If you need to check an answer just drag your cursor through the space between the brackets under the clue.
DT 26421
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26241
A Full Review by Gnomethang
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
A pretty standard puzzle from Cephas this week with a couple of niggles/unknowns for me – please help me out if you think I have misrepresented a solution.
Toughie 477
Toughie No 477 by Excalibur
Hints and tips by Bufo
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
I found this to be an agreeable puzzle of average difficulty. I did struggle with the last answer (14 down) but I got there eventually.
DT 26425
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26425
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
This week’s run of fairly easy puzzles continues with this one from today’s mystery setter. A glimpse at the Quick crossword confirms that the mystery setter is almost certainly Ray T!
Toughie 476
Toughie No 476 by Notabilis
An Enjoyable Outing
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
It seems to me that we get two different levels of Toughie from Notabilis. Those that we see on a Friday tend to be brilliant and fiendish; those that we get earlier in the week (often on a Wednesday – I’m not complaining) are slightly less difficult but still wonderfully entertaining, just like this one. There are some excellent clues here and not an obscure word in sight (with the possible exception of the rarely-used past tense in 19d).
Please let us know what you think of it in a comment and also take the time to show how much you enjoyed it by clicking on one of the stars below.