Toughie No 878 by Notabilis
The Twang’s the Thang!
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
Greetings from the Calder Valley! One of my favourite setters is here today and as usual we have a high quality and stiff test for the Friday slot. Lots of great quality clues that demonstrate a setter right at the top of his game and caused plenty of head scratching. I spent quite some time staring at a blank grid before things started to materialise and fall into place.
I would happily nominate 24 down as one of the best clues I have seen this year.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27020
A full review by gnomethang
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** Enjoyment ***
Morning All!. I solved this one on the way to London before linking to Derby for the Sloggers and Betters meet. There were a couple that held me up through my own stupidity but apart from that pretty straightforward I thought.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27025
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **/*** – Enjoyment ***
We have a fairly typical Giovanni puzzle today. Do leave a comment letting us know what you thought of it.
If you need to see an actual answer just highlight the gap between the curly brackets under the clue; if you’re accessing the blog from a mobile device there’s some advice on how to do this in the FAQ section.
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Toughie No 877 by Petitjean
Hints and tips by Bufo
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
I encountered few problems filling in the answers but struggled with some of the explanations and had to resort to Googling for a couple of them.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27024
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from the Vega Baja, where the weather has returned to normal service after about 10 days of pretty constant rain!
There’s a couple of tricky clues in this puzzle but otherwise a pretty solid 2* for me and a lot of fun, even at 0700. It’s worth the 4* enjoyment if only for 5d! Not sure about the setter but it might be RayT again, perhaps he’ll let us know. I can spot Jay a mile off but I’ve not blogged enough of RayT to be sure.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2664
A full review by crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***– Enjoyment ***
A slightly trickier offering from Virgilius this week, two clues causing me more trouble than the rest. A nice mix of clues but no special favourites for me this time.
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Cruciverbalists’ Convention
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It’s time once again for a meeting in London, this time to celebrate the fourth birthday of the blog. Come along and join us at The Bridge House, 13 Westbourne Terrace Road, London, W2 6NG on the 2nd February – any time between 12noon and 7.00pm.
All are welcome and, as usual, we have picked a pub that enables you to enjoy a host of real ales. Click on either of the pictures for further details of the venue.
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Toughie No 876 by Giovanni
The Iceman Cometh
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***/**** – Enjoyment ***
Once you’ve got the two long answers and the hub, the grid effectively gives you four separate puzzles today. I started in the NW and proceeded in an anti-clockwise direction, managing to finish each quadrant before moving on to the next. I thought that it was a fairly difficult mid-week Toughie with a few words new to me; what did you think?
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27023
Hints and tips by scchua
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BD Rating – Difficulty **- – Enjoyment ***
This was quite straightforward and enjoyable. About a 1.5-2* for difficulty, and a 3* for enjoyment. Thanks to Jay (I think it’s him, unless someone says to the contrary, in which case apologies all round). Continue reading “DT 27023”
Toughie No 875 by Messinae
The Countdown starts here!
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
The usual relatively gentle start to the Toughie week with a puzzle that I, and I suspect many others, found to be easier than the one on the back page. Overseas solvers may be mystified by the references to UK TV shows, especially 6 across.
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