Toughie No 3561 by Weatherman
Hints and tips by Whybird
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty **/*** – Enjoyment *****
Greetings from the Wirral. Well, the Slavonian Grebe decided it wasn’t going to hang around for a windy weekend, but the blow brought decent numbers of Leach’s Petrel and assorted other seabird goodies to the North Wirral coast. Quite how a bird no bigger than a blackbird survives out in the open ocean always amazes me.
Moving on from the wonders of the natural world, we have a wonder of the cruciverbal kind today. Weatherman has given us an absolute cracker, with lots of elegant surfaces and a lashings of deception and misdirection. I didn’t find it too hard, although I’ve added an extra half-star for the time it took to dig out some of the parsings. There’s a healthy dose of science today, too, which played into my stronger suit. There are so many wonderful surfaces, I’m spoilt for choice (3d, 6d, 8d, 22a in particular) but my prize goes to 1d, closely followed by 16a and 31a.
Thank you, Weatherman, for a wonderful puzzle.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
Continue reading “Toughie 3561”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31051
Hints and tips by Shabbo
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Good morning, fellow puzzlers.
I’m on Tuesday blogging duty today, as Huntsman is away for a few days’ golf on some of the excellent courses on the beautiful North Norfolk coast. If the weather up there is as good as it is here, he is in for a lovely few days.
I found this a bit trickier than normal for a Tuesday, or maybe it’s just me being a bit slow out of the blocks this morning? It was a bit disconcerting when 1a took me ages to parse, but in retrospect, it shouldn’t have done. There is an unindicated Americanism which might irk RD, but as it is in the Quickie Pun, I think our setter is off the hook!
In the blog below, the definition element of each clue has been underlined, anagrams are CAPITALISED and the crossword technique “indicator words” are in brackets. The answers are concealed under the “Click Here” buttons. Please leave a comment telling us how you got on and what you thought of the puzzle.
Many thanks to our setter and to the DT Crossword Team.
Continue reading “DT 31051”