Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2565 (Hints)
Hints and tips from 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 – 043 (Review)
Not the Saturday Prize Puzzle – 043
Sloggers & Betters by Elgar
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This crossword was produced by John Henderson, better known to Daily Telegraph readers as Elgar, in honour of the 7th Sloggers and Betters meeting. The meeting itself celebrated the fifth anniversary of Peter Biddlecombe’s Times for the Times crossword blog. In attendance from the far side of the world was one of the bloggers – Uncle Yap – who gets a mention in one of the clues.
You do need to know a little of the solvers and setters world to understand some of the clues. I have added some background information below. There is also a NINA around the perimeter of the grid that spells out {BLOGGER / SETTER / SLOGGER / BETTER}.
Continue reading “NTSPP – 043 (Review)”
NTSPP – 043 (Comments)
Not the Saturday Prize Puzzle – 043
Sloggers & Betters by Elgar
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Welcome to the forty third in our series of weekly puzzles.
Elgar distributed a special puzzle at the recent Sloggers & Betters 7 meeting, and has kindly given permission for it to be reproduced here.
DT 26415 (Hints)
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26415 (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 470
Toughie No 470 by Elgar
Libertarianism!
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
Tilsit is having a bad day today so I have taken over the blogging responsibility.
After twenty minutes I was staring at a puzzle with four answers filled in, then suddenly it all fell into place. Many Telegraph solvers struggle with Elgar puzzles, probably because his setting style is Libertarian rather than the more-usual Ximenian. This allows him to take “liberties” with some of the clues. I don’t want to go into more detail here, but will try to get something added to the FAQ.
ST 2564
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2564
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
Here’s a puzzle using one of those “natural” 15×15 grids with words of 5, 7, and 9 letters. These have the potential to include some very familiar content, but although there are a few old favourite answers here, there are plenty of less frequent visitors to the grid too, and enough difficulty to make it a relatively tricky Sunday Telegraph puzzle for me, even with 3 hidden word clues.
DT 26414
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26414
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
A not too difficult puzzle from Giovanni today and I did waver between two and three stars for difficulty. A couple of the clues stand out for me. How about you? Let us know what you thought of it in a comment!
We get new readers all the time, so I’m sure that regulars will forgive the need for a constant reminder that the answers are concealed between the curly brackets under each clue. Just highlight the space between the brackets to reveal one.
DT 26409
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26409
A Full Review by Gnomethang
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Morning All!. I failed to realise last week, due to lack of thought, that Cephas had taken a break and a new setter was in place so I was comforted to see that this week’s was one of his – the usual good charades and cryptic definitions, some gentle, some not so, confirmed this.
Toughie 469
Toughie No 469 by Petitjean
Hints and tips by Bufo
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Sorry about the late posting but I had to go out for a few hours. I thought the puzzle of average difficult and, even though I’m not a great fan of Petitjean’s clueing, I thought it was of reasonable standard.
DT 26413
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26413
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
Big Dave is stuck at Birmingham airport this morning (not snowbound, but waiting for a later flight than expected) so I have the (dubious?) honour of reviewing today’s puzzle. Unfortunately it’s not a Ray T this week and I can’t say that I found it very stimulating – there are a few good clues but for the most part it’s fairly humdrum. If you really liked it (or if you didn’t) please let us know in a comment.