Toughie No 3705 by Gila
Hints and tips by Whybird
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment ***
Welcome to the Toughie Week! This is a rare Toughie appearance for Gila and is certainly the first chance I’ve had to Blog one of his puzzles and that always increases the nervousness, but I needn’t have worried. The two long anagrams at 1a and 1d made for a rapid start, and I was thinking about a fractional difficulty rating. Then I got bogged down on 19a and 20d, which took me longer than the rest of the puzzle, although neither clue was objectively all that tricky. Prizes go to 5d, 10d (I can never remember the spelling – now I won’t forget) and the aforesaid 20d, with 21d pinching the top spot by a nose.
The clues are all well put together, so no concerns on that score, but my minor local difficulty in the SE notwithstanding, for me, this would have sat better on the back page. This blurring of the between inside and back page difficulties seems to be a frequent occurrence recently and is something I think the Puzzles Team should address. But remind me I said that when a full-on four- or five-star puzzle lands on my watch on a quiet Tuesday morning.
Thanks to Gila for a pleasant start to a sunny Tuesday.
Please let us know how you fared and what you thought of the puzzle.