Double Toughie No 100005 by Elgar
Just lovely!
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
Season’s Greetings from the Calder Valley! One of the joys of Christmas is that the Telegraph continues to treat its subscribers with top-class puzzles throughout the festive season and we are spoiled this year with a Dada Toughie and the usual Rufus Cryptic and Elgar’s Double Toughie.
If you haven’t seen it. Stop now and go and print it off from here.
Quite simply, this is a breath-taking puzzle and one that may have you reaching for a hanky. Don’t let the preamble spoil things for you, this is a most amazingly clever grid construct by Elgar and is a fine tribute to one of the events that affected the crossword community towards the end of the year.
Basically with the exception of the clues to 1 ac / 13 ac which is a definition of the two entries at 24 ac and 47 ac, either of the two words at 1 ac / 13 ac may provide a definition for each half of each double across clue. So as you can imagine this is a brilliant grid construct and it does mean a couple of the down answers are a little more obscure, but those clues are fairly straightforward to get. In each across clue – I’ll define the across answers as either 1 ac or 13ac. I have shown the divide in each clue with a red slash.
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Toughie No 100005 by Dada
A Cracker at Christmas
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
There’s nothing too taxing in this enjoyable puzzle by Dada. If you can find a moment between the mince pies a comment would be appreciated.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 100005
Hints and tips by scchua
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment ***
Season’s Greetings and A Happy New Year to all. A typical Rufus with his trademark cryptic and double defns. anagrams and the odd nautical reference. An easy one, even for him, which should leave plenty of time for your Christmas lunch. A 1* or less for difficulty, and just about 3* for enjoyment. Thanks to Rufus.
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Merry Christmas to all our readers
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Big Dave and the team of bloggers would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
A special thank you to all the crossword setters, especially to those who have taken the time to leave comments on the blog, and to Phil McNeill and his team at Telegraph Puzzles.
If you are one of several thousand lurkers that visit the site every day – why not break cover and say hello!
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Toughie No 1107 by Warbler
What the Dickens?
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
After last Tuesday’s mixup, normality returns with an easy straightforward puzzle. As befitting the date there is a seasonal flavour to the two long across clues.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2722
A full review by gnomethang
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Afternoon All!. As per Big Dave’s recent post the closing date for the 15th December Sunday Prize Puzzle has been moved forward to Yesterday so the review is appearing today. This was a pretty straightforward puzzle but had some wonderfully diverting surface readings.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27369
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment ****
This is a lovely (and gentle) seasonally-themed puzzle from the evergreen Rufus (who will be doing it all over again tomorrow, online only but because of the current debacle everyone should be able to get it, whether they’re an online subscriber or not).
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Christmas and New Year Puzzles
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Phil McNeill has kindly provided me with the puzzle publication and closing dates over the Christmas and New Year period, and I have produced a table which also includes the dates you can expect to see those puzzles reviewed here.
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Monthly Prize Puzzle – December 2013
A crossword by Radler
Reviewed by Prolixic
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Congratulations to Crypticsue for correctly solving and answering the question in this month’s prize puzzle. For the avoidance of doubt, this was one of the prize puzzles that she did not test solve so she was free to enter the competition.
As prize puzzles go, this was as tough as they come requiring solvers to be fluent in four languages. Radler pulled no punches when setting this one! Well done to all who correctly solved it.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27368
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
If you think this doesn’t seem like a Rufus puzzle, you are right. Rufus has told us that he is in the driving seat with a special puzzle tomorrow and an online-only one on Christmas Day while Jay, the Wednesday Wizard, has moved to today. It seems he felt that wearing the Monday Maestro’s hat meant that the puzzle had to be easy, and in that he has succeeded. I enjoyed the festive flavour.
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