Not the Saturday Prize Puzzle – 067
A Puzzle by Prolixic
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Welcome to the latest in our series of weekly puzzles.
This week Prolixic returns to entertain us.
Month: May 2011
DT 26558 (Hints)
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26558 (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 566
Toughie No 566 by Firefly
A Day of Sadness
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from the Calder Valley.
The blog is tinged with sadness today as I learned yesterday of the death of Mike Laws. Mike was a former Times Crossword Editor, and was currently Independent Magazine (Inquisitor) Crossword Editor. Mike set puzzles under many pseudonyms including Fawley in the Guardian, Jude, Yorick and Ikela and others. I think he also had a couple of EV puzzles published in the Sunday Telegraph over the years. He also provided one in three of the Mephisto Crosswords in the Sunday Times. Many of you probably won’t have heard of him but his influence on the crossword world is immense. He was a larger-than-life character who was one of the experts both as a setter, editor and aficionado. His unusual appearance belied one of the most amazing minds and I know that many setters have benefited from his warm words of encouragement and advice.
A look at the Message Board on the Crossword Centre (http://www.boards2go.com/boards/board.cgi?&user=dharrison) will tell you the high regard in which Mike was held.
RIP Mike, we are all the better for having met and known you and your influence on the crossword world will live long with all of us.
Back to today’s Firefly and this was a ferocious challenge, one of the toughest we have had for a while. It’s a pangrammatic puzzle (one with all the letters of the alphabet inside). It is also noticeable that there aren’t too many correct solvers on the Telegraph leader-boards, which is a sure-fire indication of where this sits on the difficulty scale. Some clever clues, although a couple seemed a bit too clever for their own good. I found it quite difficult to get a foot-hold in the puzzle and although my first few answers were in the top right corner, so was the last one I entered!
ST 2588
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2588
A full review by Gnomethang
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Afternoon All!. We had another very enjoyable puzzle from Virgilius this week. As Digby pointed out there are 6 clues (including the four long perimeter clues) that contain the same letter 3 times in a row. Virgilius pointed out later on Sunday that he merely included this contrivance for a bit of fun and to see if anyone noticed!. Continue reading “ST 2588”
DT 26557
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26557
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
We have a great puzzle from Giovanni today which I really enjoyed solving and blogging. Let us know how you fared in a comment.
If you need to see an answer just drag your cursor through the space between the curly brackets under the relevant clue.
DT 26552
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26552
A full review by Crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
After my first read through, my initial reaction was ‘oh heck’ but luckily this didn’t last too long and this very entertaining crossword was completed in a fairly quick time. Thanks to our mystery setter for a great Saturday puzzle; for me the star of the show was the apt anagram indicator in 2d.
Toughie 565
Toughie No 565 by MynoT
Hints and tips by Bufo
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
With this puzzle MynoT passes the half-way stage on his rainbow quest with several answers being connected with the colour green. I found no real difficulty in filling the grid though I did have to then check and confirm a few things.
DT 26556
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26556
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
A peek at the Quick crossword confirmed for me that this was Ray T’s handiwork. Not as risqué as some, but still very enjoyable.
Toughie 564
Toughie No 564 by Shamus
A Couple of ‘Unches
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
For the second day running I’m reviewing a Shamus puzzle. I thought that it was very entertaining with some good “doh” moments and only three anagrams (hurrah). I was proceeding quite rapidly until I reached the final (NE) corner where I came to a juddering halt for a little while.
I don’t usually pay much attention to the grid (in many years of doing crosswords before starting blogging here I hardly ever noticed them), but after yesterday’s discussion on “double unches” etc I thought I’d better inspect today’s. I see that it has two clues with a double unch and with less than fifty percent of the letters checked – this may be of little consequence or it may be a hanging offence; I don’t know and it doesn’t worry me.
Let us know what you thought of the puzzle in a comment.
DT 26555
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26555
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Hello again from the Vega Baja. You’ll be pleased to know that I solved this one at a more sensible time of day than I did last week’s so it’s only getting 2* for difficulty!
The usual excellent stuff from Jay (presumably) with a nice mix of clue types and some unusual uses of common crossword terms. While I didn’t find the solving hard, writing hints for some of these was at least a 5* rating!
Continue reading “DT 26555”