October 10, 2012 – Big Dave's Crossword Blog

Toughie 856

Toughie No 856 by MynoT

Quite Quick but Quality Questionable

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BD Rating – Difficulty */**Enjoyment **

On MynoT’s last outing CrypticSue commented “apart from wanting to see how MynoT would get on trying to put a Q in every solution, I do wish he could abandon the alphabeticals and give us an ‘ordinary’ Toughie”. Well the first part of her wish has been more-or-less satisfied; we’ll have to wait and see for the second. I say more-or-less satisfied because the wished-for letter appears in all the across answers but in only some of the downs. Even more than with previous letters (because of the following U) the theme does make the puzzle very predictable and I was glad that it didn’t take long. There are an awful lot of clues where you have to insert, add or delete a single character. What do you think?

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DT 26993

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26993

Hints and tips by scchua

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BD Rating – Difficulty **Enjoyment ***

A 2* (or perhaps under) in difficulty, with a 3* for enjoyment, with some interestingly cryptic definitions and indicators smoothly fitting into the surfaces.  Thanks to setter. Definitions are underlined in the clues. “[xxx]” denotes a synonym or equivalent of “xxx”.

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