September 2020 – Page 3 – Big Dave's Crossword Blog

Month: September 2020

Toughie 2510

by Miffypops  

Toughie No 2510 by Silvanus

Hints and tips by Miffypops

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

What a pleasure it has been to solve and review this wonderful crossword. The puzzle is full of ingenuity and offers none of the staleness and tiredness sometimes seen in crosswordland. At the time of solving and reviewing I have Silvanus in mind or possibly Chalicea. Only time and Kath will tell. (CrypticSue told and it is Silvanus) Great fun all round. 27 across and 20 down went in easily but both took some time for me to work out the parsing. See if you can manage them without the hints. Continue reading “Toughie 2510”

DT 29475

by Mr K  

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 29475

Hints and tips by Mr K

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BD Rating  -  Difficulty *** -  Enjoyment ****

Hello everyone, and welcome to Tuesday.  In my blog for DT 29457 a few weeks ago I said that it was the best crossword that I'd solved for months.  The Clue of the Week section in the following edition of the Telegraph Puzzles Newsletter revealed that the compiler of that fine puzzle was our regular Sunday setter John Halpern.  In my view, today's puzzle delivers similar levels of enjoyment.  There are a few echoes of DT 29457 in it, but I'm not sure enough that it's Dada to stick my neck out and assign it to him.  Perhaps our compiler or our editor could enlighten us?  Reader speculation is of course welcome. Continue reading "DT 29475"

DT 29474

by pommers  

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 29474

Hints and tips by pommers

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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***

Hola from the Vega Baja where summer appears to have returned since my last blog a couple of weeks ago.  The temperature has climbed over 30°C every day for the last week and it’s forecast to stay the same for the rest of this week.

Today’s crossword isn’t as easy the last one I blogged but I don’t think these hints will be needed much. There’s a couple of meanings of words which I hadn’t come across before but the wordplay is fairly clear so a quick look in the dictionary to confirm is all that’s required.
Continue reading “DT 29474”

EV 1453 (Hints)

by The Numpties  

Enigmatic Variations 1453 (Hints)

Four-letter Words by Piccadilly

Hints and tips by The Numpties

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Piccadilly has been setting crosswords mostly in the Enigmatic Variations series and for the Listener for over thirty years so you can be confident that his clues will be fair and balanced. When we see his name as the setter of a Listener numerical crossword, we tend to shiver (though his recent numerical one had a memorable finish – the numbers had to be converted to words and they gave I HATE NUMERICAL CROSSWORDS BECAUSE MAKING A MISTAKE MEANS STARTING ALL OVER AGAIN) but fortunately we are dealing with words here. Continue reading “EV 1453 (Hints)”