Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30948
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from my lakeside retreat outside Ottawa where the smoke from the western wildfires has abated considerably. Last week the smoke level was higher than the maximum reading on the scale and was simply cited as 10 plus.
Once again, the puzzle was posted late to the Telegraph Puzzles site. One might think the process would be automated but the task of releasing the puzzle seems to have been assigned to the night watchman who presses the button whenever he happens to wake up from his nap.
I got off to a quick start and thought this would easily be no more than a 2* effort but I was met with heavy resistance along the eastern seaboard which sent me into 3* territory.
I’m not making any calls on who the setter might be. To me, it doesn’t feel like any of the regular setters. Whoever did set it certainly went overboard on the pun – although 2 of the 6 words in the pun fodder transpose unchanged to the answer. The answer to the pun sums up my feelings on that very well.
In the hints below, underlining identifies precise definitions and cryptic definitions, FODDER is capitalized, and indicators are italicized. The answers will be revealed by clicking on the ANSWER buttons.
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