Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27012
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** / *** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Ottawa where it was still October 31 when I sat down to write this review which means that it is Halloween, a night when people dress up in scary costumes and children go door to door extorting candy from residents in return for a promise not to do damage (trick or treat). We have also been experiencing the tail end of Hurricane Sandy. Fortunately for us, the storm had expended most of its destructive force by the time it arrived here and we are only getting some moderately high winds and a couple of days of rain.
Today’s puzzle from RayT seems to be rather on the tame side. Having blazed through three quadrants, I was ready to award it two stars for difficulty when I became seriously mired in the southwest corner. As a result, I bumped the rating up a tad. The puzzle is relatively devoid of anagrams so I know some folks will likely be disappointed.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26988
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** / *** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Ottawa where we have been enjoying some lovely autumn weather. The leaves are just beginning to turn. While they are unquestionably a gorgeous sight, I dread the thought of soon having to rake them.
In today’s offering, Ray T seems to have dialed down the difficulty knob a smidgen while boosting the naughtiness control a notch. You should certainly have no difficulty finding an entry point.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26970
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** / **** – Enjoyment ****
Welcome from Ottawa where the September weather has alternated between unseasonably cold and unseasonably warm. For the next few days, it seems, we will be in the latter phase of this cycle.Having been reassigned to join Pommers on the Thursday desk, I found today’s puzzle by Ray T to lie a bit toward the more difficult end of the scale. While I managed to complete the puzzle without resorting to the cheat sheet that Big Dave kindly provided, I did make generous use of my electronic aids. As for enjoyment, I think it sits solidly in four star territory.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26933
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** / *** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Ottawa where it looks like the drought will be interrupted by a few rainy days. At least, the farmers will be happy – although it may be too little, too late. Today’s puzzle has a good mixture of clue types with varying levels of difficulty – a few easy ones to get you started and a few challenging ones to make you think.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26909
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Ottawa where we are experiencing a spell of sunny, 30+ degree weather. We just celebrated Canada Day on July 1 and our neighbours to the south are celebrating their national holiday today. So Happy Fourth of July to any American readers out there. The puzzle makes no specific mention of the occasion (only a passing reference to an American in one clue), but there is certainly ample food and drink to throw quite a party.
I found the puzzle, while quite enjoyable, to be a bit less difficult than usual. Jay has also given us a good variety of clue types today. There are the customary ‘select certain letters from a word’ clue (but the puzzle is not overloaded with them) as well as at least one of his substitution type clues.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26885
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty **/*** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Ottawa where we are just emerging from a spell of cool, wet weather (much like Britain, I gather) into a hopefully prolonged period of more seasonable weather.
Today, we have a typical offering from Jay with plenty of requirements to select specified letters (first, last, inner, outer, odd, even) from words, but no substitution (X for Y) type clue.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26855
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Ottawa where April showers are extending into May. Pommers is traveling and apparently somewhat cut off from the Internet. However, I am sure he is closely following – and no doubt concerned by – the recent play of United. As for my sports obsession, the Ottawa Senators have already been knocked out of the hockey playoffs here in North America.
Apparently I get the honour of piloting the new blog site on its maiden run. Let’s hope I fare better than the captain of the Titanic.
Today we have a puzzle that is easily recognizable as a Jay creation. It did take me a bit of time to get started. However, once I had established a beachhead, I was able to make steady progress.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26807
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Ottawa where we are about to experience some very unseasonable weather – the outlook for Wednesday is sunny and +12 degrees (Celsius).
Today we have a typical puzzle from Jay, although it is missing the usual substitution (A for B) type clue that I have come to expect from him. I debated whether it deserved 2* or 3* for difficulty. While I solved the majority of the clues more rapidly than usual – I did find that the last few put up quite a fight.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26765
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from blustery Ottawa where we are currently in the midst of a blizzard. Today’s puzzle is a fairly typical offering from Jay – if perhaps a bit less difficult than usual – with lots of clues where one must either strip the outer letters from words or eviscerate words.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26735
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Ottawa where we are having a run of unseasonably mild weather – it may be shaping up to be a green Christmas. Today Jay delivers his typical offering of solid, well constructed clues. I gave it two stars for difficulty as I completed it with minimal outside assistance (despite there being a couple of new British terms for me).
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