June 22, 2012 – Big Dave's Crossword Blog

Toughie 794

Toughie No 794 by Firefly

Hints and tips by Tilsit

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BD Rating – Difficulty ***Enjoyment ***

Greetings from the Calder Valley! We end the Toughie week with a visit from Firefly. I found this very much a curate’s egg of a puzzle with some really nice stuff but one or two clues that caused some tooth-sucking. Whether it was because we were spoiled with Micawber and Dada’s fine puzzles over the past couple of days, but this didn’t quite hit the mark for me. The puzzle seems to have a number of famous names as answers, but I’m not sure this is a theme as such.

The other reason this puzzle was rather odd for me was that I virtually started at the bottom of the grid and worked my way up. At one point, I had the entire bottom half completed with one answer in the top half. In fact the top half took me over twice as long as the bottom half.

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DT 26899

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26899

Hints and tips by Gazza

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

Last Friday’s Giovanni was, I thought, on the easy side but this week he’s given us a meatier puzzle with some cracking clues. Let us know how you found it and how you got on.
If you want to see an answer just highlight the spaces between the brackets under the relevant clue; if you’re accessing the blog from a new-fangled mobile device you can find some help on how to do this in the FAQ.

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DT 26894

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26894

A full review by gnomethang

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BD Rating – Difficulty **Enjoyment ****

Morning All! We had a reasonable stiff test for a Saturday puzzle and a standout clue for me at 11d.

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