Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26328
Hints and tips by Crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Our setters are giving us some very enjoyable puzzles so far this week. Today Jay has given us some great clues and, in my opinion, just the right amount of anagrams, including some of those part-anagram, part-something-else clues. Didn’t take too long to solve but still great fun – ideal for when you are supposed to be getting on with the day job!!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26319
A full review by Crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Like quite a few fellow solvers, it took me a while to get into the swing of this Cephas puzzle – I do believe he is making us work harder these days. I wasn’t entirely convinced I had enjoyed the process when I finished but there is something about writing the review that makes you appreciate the clues more than at first read through, and the realisation that I have actually noticed the pangram always makes me feel good.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26322
Hints and tips by Crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **/***
I took a while to get into today’s Jay puzzle, the downs falling into place quicker than the acrosses but in the end it only took me a couple of minutes longer than usual to solve. I have based the difficulty rating partly on my initial struggle and partly on how hard it was to work out why I had the answer I had! There are a nice mix of clues, including several to please the anagram fans.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26307
A full review by Crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
I enjoyed this Saturday’s offering from Cephas. It took me a little longer than usual to solve, thanks to some clever clues which took a while to work out and my trying to overcomplicate matters (see 2d below).
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26310
Hints and tips by Crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Thank you Jay for another nice Wednesday puzzle for us to work through today. Although most of it was straightforward, there were a couple of clues which caused me problems, hence the difficulty rating.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26304
Hints and tips by Crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
A fairly straight forward mid week offering from Jay, with the usual number of interesting anagrams and a couple of clues to give you pause for thought, hence my awarding it three stars for difficulty. Although it took me the longest to work out, I am going for 23a as my favourite clue today.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26295
A full review by Crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Cephas gave us a very enjoyable crossword this week – Barrie summed it up nicely “ Very interesting and enjoyable puzzle … very tough in parts… but … an encouraging start” and I can’t think of anything I could say which would describe it up any better than that. My BD rating reflects the difficulty of some of the clues and the fact that we all got a great deal of pleasure from solving the puzzle.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26298
Hints and tips by Crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
I thoroughly enjoyed this Wednesday’s offering from Jay. A lovely mix of clues, anagrams, hidden words, all-in-ones and even one of those pesky every other letter ones which I am only just (even after all these years) managing to recognise. Thank you Jay for giving me such a nice puzzle to review. I hope you all agree with my opinion and don’t all rush for the 5d! Hard to pick favourite clues today but I will plump for 1d, 17d and 21d.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26283
A full review by Crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
Saturday’s offering from Cephas was, depending on how you solved it : a “challenging”, “tricky”, “enjoyable” “stinker”. I had a couple of moments of “how can I review this when I can’t get two of the clues” but some careful reading made me realise what was required and I finished in one fairly quick sitting. Didn’t enjoy it as much as the previous two days’ splendid offerings but I would say it was challenging but doable with cogitation – posters seemed to find a cycle ride along the Canal du Midi or a walk round a nature reserve or even just a nice cup of tea did the trick. It was nice to see that while Big Dave was taking a well deserved rest over a few pints at the White Horse, there were plenty of others ready to give assistance with those needing help with the trickier clues. There were over 200 comments on this puzzle, so I hope my review will help those who struggled to make sense of it all.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26271
A full review by Crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Reading the first few clues, I had to check whether I had the right day of the week, as it seemed to me that the puzzle was slightly harder than previous Saturday offerings. Once I got into it, however, and 1a’d to the compiler’s cunning plan, it turned out to be a relatively quick solve with some splendid clues, 17a, 27a, 2d being just some of my favourites.
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