January 2023 – Big Dave's Crossword Blog

DT 30211

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30211
Hints and tips by Twmbarlwm

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

Good morning. A very playful puzzle, beautifully constructed with some interconnecting clues, amusing anagrams, a handful of pretty easy ones, and some where a little head-scratching and perhaps lateral thinking were required. Many thanks to the setter. Continue reading “DT 30211”

Sunday Toughie 53 (Hints)

Sunday Toughie No 53 by proXimal

Hints and Tips by Sloop John Bee

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A nice offering from proXimal to start the second year of Sunday Toughies. It will be a long time (about 58 years I think) before it gets to celebrate a 3000th as the normal Toughie did on Friday. A couple of proXimal trademark extraction anagrams and as normal for me some doubts about parsing remain (1d – but see the hint for what I made of it)
14a and 14d clues and I have hinted half. As usual the BRB and thesaurus are your friends.

Here we go, Folks…

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EV 1575 Hints

Enigmatic Variations 1575 (Hints)

Follow the Instructions by Kcit

Hints and tips by Phibs

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Georges Remi, the creator of Tintin, came up with his pseudonym by taking his first and last initials, reversing them, and turning the French pronunciation of the individual letters into the name Hergé. Today’s setter did something along the same lines – his first and last initials are PH, a reversal of which gives HP, an abbreviation for ‘hire-purchase’. This loosely equates to ‘credit’ or ‘tick’, and a complementary reversal  of the latter gives ‘kcit’. Simples!

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ST 3197 (Hints)

Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 3197 (Hints)

Hints and tips by Senf

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A very good Sunday morning from Winnipeg where, with the end of January in sight, the un-seasonally warm two or three weeks we have enjoyed has already come to an end and we are back in the deep freeze with a high temperature (using the term loosely) of minus 23 degrees yesterday with a similar forecast for today.… Continue reading

DT 30209 (Hints)

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30209 (Hints)

The Saturday Crossword Club (hosted by crypticsue)

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Another chilly day here in East Kent where the sun is trying to decide whether it wants to come out or not, and while things hopefully improve outside, this leaves time for crossword solving in the warm

Continue reading “DT 30209 (Hints)”