Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30972
Hints and tips by Falcon
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Ottawa, where we are (depending on one’s point of view) enjoying/suffering from a heat wave with temperatures in the thirties.
I found today’s puzzle to be rather difficult and it took far longer than my normal time to crack (thus no illustrations today). However, that may just be due to me being overtired and not on top of my game.
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.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought of the puzzle.
Continue reading “DT 30972”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30960
Hints and tips by Falcon
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from my lakeside retreat outside Ottawa, where summer has made a dramatic entry, with high winds and tornado warnings and temperatures forecast to reach the mid-thirties today.
The puzzle did not appear to me to be the work of any of our recent setters so I will not venture a guess. However, it should appeal to fans of anagrams and word search.
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.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought of the puzzle.
Continue reading “DT 30960”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30948
Hints and tips by Falcon
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
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.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought of the puzzle.
Continue reading “DT 30948”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30936
Hints and tips by Falcon
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Ottawa, where King Charles and Queen Camilla will arrive this afternoon for a quick overnight stay. Tomorrow, the King will deliver the Speech from the Throne opening the new session of Parliament before they depart later in the day.
Hopefully, they will be blessed with a bit of decent weather during their visit – something that has been in short supply lately. Although we did experience a warm, sunny day yesterday, the weather has been unseasonably cold and rainy for the past couple of weeks. I read with envy Senf’s accounts of the warm temperatures in Western Canada which would normally arrive here a couple of days later. However, lately they have failed to make an appearance. He must either be hoarding the warm weather or perhaps he has forwarded it by Canada Post.
I found today’s puzzle more challenging than recent offerings. I did enjoy it although I would have enjoyed it far more if I weren’t working to deadline. It does not help that ever since the new Telegraph Puzzles website was introduced, the puzzles have invariably been posted late – sometimes by as much as 45 minutes (the delay was about 30 minutes today). This is a major inconvenience to bloggers on this side of the pond who prepare the blog the evening before it appears on Big Dave’s website. It may also, at least in part, account for the recent dearth of kitties on Friday.
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.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought of the puzzle.
Continue reading “DT 30936”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30924
Hints and tips by Falcon
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Ottawa, where we find ourselves in the midst of a gorgeous spell of weather with temperatures in the mid 20s and not forecast to hit either the sizzling highs or frigid lows that Winnipeg is expecting this week as Senf reported yesterday. It is Tulip Festival time and the beautiful blooms are everywhere. The festival is especially meaningful this year coming on the heels of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands to which the event is so closely tied having been born out of the gift of tulip bulbs from the people of the Netherlands as a gesture of thanks to Canada for our leading role in the liberation of their country and for providing sanctuary to the Dutch royal family during the Second World War.
I suspect we owe our appreciation for this puzzle to X-Type, although my setter identification skills have often been proven sadly lacking. For those like myself who are partial to cryptic definitions, this was a real treat.
I must also express my appreciation to Senf for the answer to the Quickie pun. It was a true “phone a friend” (or, rather, email a friend) situation as the river at 8d would have frozen over before I got it on my own.
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.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought of the puzzle.
Continue reading “DT 30924”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30912
Hints and tips by Falcon
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Ottawa, where spring has finally arrived heralded by the budding flowers and the arrival of hockey playoff season. On Saturday, I watched two thrilling matches. In the afternoon, our professional women’s team, the Ottawa Charge, who are fighting to make the PWHL playoffs, were assessed a penalty in the final moments of a tie game against Montreal. However, despite this obstacle, the team miraculously scored a short-handed goal with 13 seconds remaining to win the game. That evening, our professional men’s team, the Ottawa Senators, down three games to nil in their first round Stanley Cup Playoff series against Toronto, scored in the eighteenth minute of overtime to stave off elimination. The sport doesn’t get any better than that.
Although X-Type told us last week he would see us “soon-ish”, it seems that this week may be too soon as the puzzle would appear to be the work of the unknown double punner who has graced this spot several times. Might there be a new Monday rotation alternating between these two setters. If so, it would be a fine pairing.
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.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought of the puzzle.
Continue reading “DT 30912”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30900
Hints and tips by Falcon
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Ottawa, where, as I write this on Sunday evening, we have been basking for a brief spell in some gloriously warm and sunny spring weather that Senf has so generously forwarded from Manitoba.
The clock indicates that the puzzle could not have been as difficult as my gut reaction told me. I think my gut was unduly influenced by a handful of tricky parsings that held out to the very end. The high number of anagrams and lurkers allowed speedy progress to be made early in the solve. However, despite their large number, the anagrams were so well constructed that (for me, at least) they did not detract from the puzzle.
I only identified one pun in today’s Quickie but there could well be a second that escaped me.
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.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought of the puzzle.
Continue reading “DT 30900”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30882
Hints and tips by Falcon
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Ottawa, where the weatherman says we are in store for a mixed bag over the coming week – a bit of rain, a bit of snow, a bit of sun, and a bit of cloud with temperatures hovering around the freezing point. The weather may be cool, but the political temperature is heating up. Yesterday, our new Prime Minister not only called a federal election but announced he would run in the riding where I live.
I started off on a tear with today’s puzzle but soon found it became a bit chewier. All in all a very enjoyable solve from our new double punning setter. Last week, X-Type promised to return soon but I would surmise this is not one of his.
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.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought of the puzzle.
Continue reading “DT 30882”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30876
Hints and tips by Falcon
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Ottawa where the weather is unseasonably warm and our hockey team is contending for a playoff spot – which would be their first appearance in the Stanley Cup Playoffs in seven years. How could things be any better? Oh yeah, I guess I can think of something.
I have no idea who may have set this puzzle. For reasons Rabbit Dave explained on the blog a couple of weeks ago, it is almost certainly not Robyn. I was only able to find one pun in the Quick Crossword, so (unless someone proves me wrong) it would not seem to be the setter who emulates the late Campbell by slipping in a second pun.
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.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought of the puzzle.
Continue reading “DT 30876”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 30864
Hints and tips by Falcon
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Ottawa, where a brief spell of temperatures hovering around the freezing point has been superseded by temperatures in the negative mid-teens (Celsius).
Until proven wrong, I will attribute this very enjoyable puzzle to Robyn. After the appearance of a second pun at the end the Quickie two weeks ago, I was on the lookout today for evidence of a revival of this Campbell practice. I thought for a moment there might be one present today, but discarded the notion when I realized that one of the words from the grid would simply be used ‘as is’ in the resulting pun. So, although there is sort of a partial pun, I don’t consider it to be a true pun.
Look closely and you may find a clue somewhere in the blog revealing what I will be doing today.
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.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought of the puzzle.
Continue reading “DT 30864”