October 7, 2011 – Big Dave's Crossword Blog

Toughie 646

Toughie No 646 by Micawber

Perseverance Pays…..

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BD Rating – Difficulty ****Enjoyment *****

Greetings from the Calder Valley. When I found out last night that I was getting Micawber today, I was filled with joy as he is one of my favourite setters and rarely fails to disappoint. However, it took me exactly 9 hours and 13 minutes to get into the Telegraph website to get a copy, including a stint at 4 am trying to get it. Come on Telegraph techies, something has got to be done, it just isn’t good enough.

Rant over. This is a simply splendid puzzle that was more than worth the wait. Lots of laugh aloud moments and the odd forehead slap as well. As I have said before, with setters like Micawber, Dada and Elgar around, the future for crosswords is bright. So many brilliant clues today, it seems a shame to pick the best. Looking at the completed grid, there are odd words here and there and I did wonder if we had a Nina, but it seems not.

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DT 26677

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26677

Hints and tips by Gazza

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BD Rating – Difficulty ***Enjoyment ****

The on-line site, far from improving, seems to be getting worse and worse. I dread to think how much time has been wasted in futile attempts to access the puzzles.
This very entertaining puzzle from Giovanni is on a par for difficulty with Wednesday’s Toughie. Let us know how you fared with it.
Good luck to Wales tomorrow morning!

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DT 26672

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26672

A full review by crypticsue

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BD Rating –Difficulty *Enjoyment **/***

Our Saturday Mysteron provided us with another straightforward but enjoyable start to Saturday morning. However did it contain, as Prolixic pointed out, a hidden message commenting on the problems with the Telegraph Puzzles site? Have a look at the solutions to 26a, 5d and 3d and see what you think.

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