Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26604
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
I had no particular favourites in this very ordinary back-page puzzle.
Month: July 2011
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.
Let us know your views on the puzzle and please remember to click on one of the stars below to indicate your enjoyment factor.
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.
Toughie 595
Toughie No 595 by Giovanni
The Grumpy Old Man is back again!
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *
My problem with Giovanni’s puzzles is that you never know which Giovanni is going to turn up. I found this one to be a boring slog and I didn’t enjoy it at all.
DT 26602
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26602
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
We were taken to task yesterday, in a comment from StevieG, for referring to some puzzles as fairly straightforward, because this might be discouraging to some solvers who don’t find them straightforward at all. However, if we’re writing a review we have to be able to say how difficult we found the puzzle relative to the average back-pager, and in my opinion this one is, well, fairly straightforward. It does have a few entertaining clues (but too many anagrams for my taste). Do feel free to agree or disagree.
If you want to see an answer just drag your cursor through the space between the brackets under the clue.
DT 26601
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26601
Hints and tips by Libellule
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
Fairly typical Monday morning stuff from Rufus. Are there too many double definitions? Are the cryptic definitions up to scratch? Feel free to leave a comment.
ST 2596 (Hints)
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2596 (Hints)
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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Araucaria (John Graham) is the guest on Desert Island Discs at 11:15 this morning – don’t miss it
(you can probably pick it up later on the BBC iPlayer).
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.
NTSPP – 074 (Review)
Not the Saturday Prize Puzzle – 074
A Puzzle by Radler
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A warm welcome back to Radler with a cheeky little puzzle that will get the pulses racing! Although there is no theme as such, there is a hidden device used in the puzzle. This is that the outer perimeter of the crossword runs through the alphabet from A to Z.
I found this not as tricky as some Radler crosswords but by no means his easiest. Many thanks to him for the challenge. My favourite clue was 24d.
NTSPP – 074 (Comments)
Not the Saturday Prize Puzzle – 074
A Puzzle by Radler
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Welcome to the latest in our series of weekly puzzles.
This week we have a puzzle from Radler – and there is no theme!
DT 26600 (Hints)
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26600 (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.