Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2530
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment ****
Four-letter words scuppered me in this one – at 1D I wrongly had SHED when the large number is “shed load”, and at 23D I missed LEFT as one of the possibilities for ?E?T, and gave up with WENT, BELT and RENT all fitting only half of the clue. Both my fault, though helped by a fear/loathing of 4-letter words with common checking letters. Also helped by not realising that one apparent double definition was actually triple.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2529
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
A notch or two harder than most of the Sunday puzzles for me. The most interesting clues for me were 1A and 1D – both as cryptic clues and as a possible controversial comparison! (BG has expressed one or two political opinions in other puzzles.)
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2528
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
This puzzle has a grid that looked a bit scruffy but grew on me after I looked harder – every word length from 4 to 12 is included, and 11, 12 and 13-letter words can easily be under-used, so 3 of these is a good feature. And of course someone who contributed to the Times puzzle’s exemplary set of grids is not going to give us one with isolated sections or under-checked words. Quite a tricky puzzle by Sunday standards, taking me about as long as an average Times cryptic.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2527
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment *****
Sorry for lateness of this report – lost copy and had to resolve. The usual elegant but not too difficult Sunday outing, with some special bits to note.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2526
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Three Brian Greer trade-mark clues in this puzzle – the long hidden word at 23A, and the two all-in-ones at 3D and 6D. Moderate difficulty and the usual elegant clues – away we go …
A few minutes late with the blog as I couldn’t get onto CluedUp this morning – clues below courtesy of a copy wisely kept by Dave. I’d already decided not to give every last shred of wordplay any more – let me know if I’ve left something out that needs explaining.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2525
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
At first glance, not a very remarkable puzzle. But there are top-class surface readings throughout – a side of cryptic clues that sometimes gets ignored. Not by this setter, and after a few goes at puzzle writing myself lately, I know how difficult this is.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2524
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Back to normality after the Valentine puzzle – no theme, and unusually for BG, no &lits/all-in-ones. But there are a couple of unusual bits of wordplay. Well I said no theme, but several clues and wordplays have sporting references. Difficulty: pretty gentle.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2523
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
As you probably expected, your Sunday setter took full advantage of the puzzle appearing on Valentine’s day. Every clue is about romance, and so are many answers.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2522
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** –Enjoyment ****
A puzzle of about average difficulty for me. I think part of the difficulty is created by longish definitions – there are only 5 single-word ones in this puzzle, compared 11 in the considerably easier Saturday puzzle.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2521
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
I found this puzzle rather harder than some recent Sunday ones, and it took me about twice as long. I’m pretty sure that 23D was one of my last answers, and 25A took quite a while too. I also put in a dud answer at 18A. So if we had multiple pictures, I’d be using the dunce’s cap one which makes too-frequent appearances at Times for the Times.
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