July 2024 – Page 2 – Big Dave's Crossword Blog

ST 3275 (Hints)

Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 3275 (Hints)

Hints and tips by Senf

A very good Sunday morning from Winnipeg – the Prairie Summer weather ‘mix’  continues although I think I heard mention of below seasonal temperatures in the weather forecast.

For me, and I stress for me, Dada reasonably friendly although his personal thesaurus may have been his preferred choice for some clues – two long ‘uns, eight anagrams (three partials), one lurker, and one homophone all in a slightly asymmetric 30 clues; with 15 hints ‘sprinkled’ throughout the grid, you should be able to get the checkers to enable the solving of the unhinted clues. … Continue reading

Toughie 3312

Toughie  No 3312 by Elgar

Hints and Tips by crypticsue

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

When Elgar sets a Friday Toughie, you get exactly what it says on the tin.  The usual stretching of the cryptic grey matter followed by a lot of smiles as I worked out exactly what was going on in the clues

Continue reading “Toughie 3312”

DT 30676

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30676

Hints and tips by Mr K

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

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Friday. I thought this was the best Friday puzzle for some time, with tight cryptic grammar and lots of penny drop moments. The use of every letter but X in the grid fill suggests that it’s the work of proXimal.  Thanks to him for today’s entertainment.  Continue reading "DT 30676"

Toughie 3311

Toughie No 3311 by Beam
Hints and tips by Gazza

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

A pretty straightforward puzzle from Beam – thanks to him.

As I may have said before there’s little difference in difficulty (apart from the absence of anagrams in the latter) between Ray T’s back-pagers and Beam’s Toughies. Beam’s self-imposed restriction on the length of his clues does make it rather difficult to incorporate complex wordplay.
Continue reading “Toughie 3311”

DT 30675

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30675
Hints and tips by Shabbo

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

After yesterday’s somewhat quirky and controversial puzzle (which I quite enjoyed, incidentally), it  was back to normal with a proper Thursday puzzle. … Continue reading

Toughie 3310

Toughie  No 3310 by Hudson

Hints and Tips by crypticsue

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BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty ***/****Enjoyment ****

I was delighted to find that today’s Toughie was by one of my favourite setters but I wasn’t expecting it to be quite this tricky. … Continue reading