NTSPP – 186
A Puzzle by Radler
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Month: August 2013
DT 27271 (Hints)
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27271 (Hints)
Big Dave’s Crossword Club
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As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, an assortment of clues, including some of the more difficult ones, have been selected and hints provided for them.
Toughie 1041
Toughie No 1041 by Notabilis
Hints and tips by Fred and Ginger
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from the Liberace home for Aged Has-Beens. Our Friday tormentor is Notabilis who once again demonstrates the sheer elegance and quality of his clue writing in this splendid challenge. Probably not one of his more difficult ones, but enough in there to stretch your mental muscles. Had a few problems in parsing a couple of clues and I’m not entirely convinced I’ve missed something obvious in 9d.
Our stand-out favourite clue was 26, which made me smile. Fred was so tempted to have MILIBAND as the answer to 20 across but realised otherwise and found a better solution!
DT 27270
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27270
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
In terms of difficulty I thought that this was towards the top of Giovanni’s back-page range and only slightly easier than his Toughie yesterday. I wonder whether he starts out with the intention of creating a puzzle of a specific category or whether he just goes ahead and completes it and only then decides which envelope to put it in.
Continue reading “DT 27270”
DT 27265
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27265
A full review by crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty */** – Enjoyment ***
A typical Cephas Saturday puzzle, with quite a few of his trademark anagrams.
Toughie 1040
Toughie No 1040 by Giovanni
The Thursday Moan
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
Bufo has dislocated his shoulder, but should be back as soon as he can type with both hands! A typical Giovanni puzzle that, once again, didn’t do it for me.
ST 2705
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2705
A full review by crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Never mind a full English, a bowl of cereal or even toast with my home-made greengage jam – the best way to start Sunday morning is with a Virgilius cryptic crossword. This one wasn’t one of his most difficult but it had the usual high level of entertainment.
DT 27269
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27269
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** / *** – Enjoyment ** / ***
Greetings from Ottawa, where we are experiencing a bit of a late summer heat wave. I found today’s puzzle to be challenging to pigeonhole. The difficulty level of clues seems to cover a broad range from facile to fairly tricky. Furthermore, some of the clues virtually defy efforts to craft hints for them. In the end, I have opted to set both meters between two and three stars.
Toughie 1039
Toughie No 1039 by Firefly
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
I didn’t find this too difficult but I did originally get one answer wrong so I’ve given myself a one point penalty and raised the difficulty level to 3*.
DT 27268
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27268
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Scchua is off for several weeks, including a visit to the UK. Another enjoyable puzzle from Jay, perhaps not as difficult as some of his recent ones.