Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2540
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
More Sunday class. As Brian Greer called me an “arch-roaster of chestnuts” or similar a few weeks ago, I suspect he may well have done this before without me noticing properly, but there is very little stale old cryptic xwd material in this puzzle – apart from some one-letter abbreviations like fifty=>L, which are almost impossible to avoid completely, there are just two bits of what I’d think of as “chestnut content”: four=>IV (25A), leg=>ON (4D).
Next Friday’s report will be a bit different. Gnomethang and I will both record our thought processes as accurately as we can while solving next Sunday’s puzzle (2541), and the blog will be a report showing our progress in parallel. The idea is to show you a bit of how we get from the clue to the answer – the analysis you usually get explaining the answer is useful (and all you can be sure of being able to write after the event) but not quite the same. It will also show you that there are many ways to skin the solving rabbit – there will be clues that one of us sees easily and the other misses completely on first look – both ways, I hope.
Continue reading “ST 2540”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2539
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *****
Watch out for the multi-word definitions in this one – among the def+wordplay clues, only 17A, 27A, 7D and 13D have one-word definitions. Watch out for lots of other good stuff too – three &lit/all-in-one clues, a 13-letter hidden word, and some classic examples of the trick of making you look for synonyms of words when you don’t need to. This is one for aspiring setters to keep as an example of what they should be aiming at – apart from the highlights, every clue has a convincing surface reading and every cryptic reading makes perfect logical sense.
Continue reading “ST 2539 – Even better than most Sundays”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2538
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *****
Continue reading “ST 2538”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2537
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment *****
More easy but classy clues this week, in a grid that gives you every word-length from 4 to 12
Continue reading “ST 2537”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2536
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *****
Quite an easy one I thought – maybe as a lot of the answers seem to be words that come up in crossword grids. All clued as well as you’d expect, in a very clean-looking grid, with just 10 black squares added to the basic lattice.
Continue reading “ST 2536”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2535
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *****
No great difficulty with this one – just the smooth surfaces and fair clues that we expect. The grid consisting entirely of 5, 7, and 9 letter words probably helps to make it easy – these are the bread and butter of 15×15 grid-fill.
Continue reading “ST 2535”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2534
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *****
For once I looked at the hints posting before writing this, so I’m trying to highlight a few useful pointers for beginners. The Sunday puzzles are worth attention from beginners because Brian Greer is scrupulously fair – more so than some Telegraph or Toughie setters. Every clue has a fair definition, and every word in the clue is there for a good reason – there are no extra words added for the sake of the “surface” reading and not the cryptic reading of the clue.
Continue reading “ST 2534”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2533
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *****
Less difficult than last week, but I think still a notch harder than most of the puzzles written in the early days of Brian Greer’s spell as the Sunday setter. Most interest here is probably in the two long answers, but there’s plenty to talk about elsewhere.
Continue reading “ST 2533”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2532
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *****
Reporting duties remembered on-time this week, for this relatively tricky one. Along with the sheer class that’s so consistent in these puzzles that I don’t always mention it, there’s something quite unusual about this puzzle – did you notice it? As usual I’m writing before I look at the comments made on the day, so I don’t know whether anyone did.
Continue reading “ST 2532”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2531
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
The usual set of good clues – I’m doing this late, for which I apologise, so let’s get straight on. Imagine a 5-minute pause while I paste in the clue text.
Continue reading “ST 2531”