July 13, 2011 – Big Dave's Crossword Blog

Toughie 596

Toughie No 596 by Excalibur

C’est la Vie

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BD Rating – Difficulty ****Enjoyment **

This was a game of two halves for me, with the bottom half going in fairly quickly but the top half holding out for some time. Excalibur’s puzzles tend to polarise opinions – although this one has some clues which I don’t like much (15a and 23a, for example) others are fine.
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DT 26603

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26603

Hints and tips by Falcon

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BD Rating – Difficulty **Enjoyment ***

It is a pleasant enough offering today from Jay which I was able to solve reasonably quickly. Given that a few British expressions presented hurdles for me that would be absent for those of you in the UK, I expect you did even better.

Big Dave attached a note to the puzzle saying “With gold mentioned, the downs are almost Goldilocks and the three bears! ” And, with hair being mentioned in the across clues (10a), perhaps the theme is complete.

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