Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31368
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★
Happy Thanksgiving to all Canadians, including my Monday blogging partner Falcon. And if you aren’t Canadian, maybe you can think of something else to be thankful for today?
Here we’re in the middle of Ilkley Literature Festival. So far we’ve been entertained by poets Brian Bilston and Pam Ayres, informed by John Kampfner, and introduced to a couple of new-to-me novelists, at which we were given proof copies of their books due out in April. One of next weekend’s talks is crossword-related: Alys Cummings is talking about her debut novel Murder Most Cryptic. If that sounds like your kind of thing, come and join us: buy a ticket and treat yourself to a trip to Ilkley.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31356
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★ – Enjoyment ★★
Good morning. Welcome to Monday’s Telegraph Crossword. Hints to, explanations of, and pedantry about the clues follow.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31338
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★ – Enjoyment ★★★★
Hello. It’s Monday, and the start of a new crosswording week. Our children still aren’t back at school yet (one starts on Wednesday and t’other on Thursday). Maybe I should suggest they have a go at this crossword?
On Saturday we visited RHS Garden Harlow Carr in Harrogate, where we saw this impressive Kingfisher:
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31332
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★★★
Hello. It’s the last day of August, and a Bank Holiday for those in England, Northern Ireland, or Wales — meaning I get to write this at a more relaxed pace, instead of the usual need to finish solving and blogging early, before working 9 to 5.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31320
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★
Hello. Thank you to Falcon for covering this slot last week, when I was returning a hire car from our holiday in my usual ‘blogging time’ before work. If you want to know where we went, you should be able to triangulate our location from these distances (click to enlarge):
![a signpost pointing in lots of directions, with labels including ‘Christmas Isle 12790’, ‘Tahiti 11830’, ‘[Ne]w Zealand 12090’, ‘Botany Bay 13325’, and ‘Alaska 16990’](https://i0.wp.com/bigdave44.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Captain-Cook-signpost.jpg?resize=444,250)
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31302
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★
Hello. It was lovely to meet some of you in Birmingham on Saturday. Thank you to everybody who came, and especially those who bought me drinks that I didn’t manage to reciprocate. And commiserations to those who’d hoped to be there but couldn’t make it.
Here’s a character I found lazing around at New Street station, presumably tired out from celebrating their 75th birthday. Please see my album of photos from the day for who else was there.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31290
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★ – Enjoyment ★★★
Hello. Welcome to Monday’s Telegraph Crossword, with hints and explanations below. Sorry, I’m running late today, so I’ll add some illustrations at lunchtime.
Before my next turn on the blogging rota we have this site’s Mid-Year Bash in Birmingham, and we’re all invited. (If you’re reading this, that includes you!) Hope to see some of you there.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31278
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★★★
Hello. Lovely to see you all for this Monday crossword. And it would also be lovely to see you in person in Birmingham next month. All solvers, commenters, lurkers, bloggers, editors, and setters from Big Dave’s Crossword Blog are welcome to the site’s summer bash. It’s in Birmingham centre during the day of Saturday July 25th and Sloop John B has the details.
If you’re new, you’re are most definitely still invited. And don’t worry about your solving ability: this is a social occasion, not a competitive event — and of course the whole reason Big Dave set up this site and founded this community in the first place is to help those who need assistance to solve cryptic crosswords, so please don’t get the impression that gatherings (or indeed comments) are only for those who already can solve them unaided!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31266
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★★
Hello. First some good news. Well, old news, this being from March, but I only spotted it recently and I’m guessing some others here also hadn’t heard it. After the fundraising appeal to which so many Big Dave readers contributed, Chris Lancaster, the Telegraph Puzzles Editor, has managed to buy a wheelchair accessible vehicle, allowing Chris and his wife to get out and about together. Here’s the update:
Thanks to our newly acquired wheelchair accessible vehicle (and wheelchair), we are away for a few days in Northumberland. It’s great to have a change of scene, and even better to see some sun. It’s been a long, dark winter, during which I almost died thanks to a ruptured appendix, on which they couldn’t operate due to my MND. Against all odds, I’m still here. A huge thank you to everyone who donated, allowing me to enjoy moments like this among the gloom.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31254
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★★★
Welcome to June, and to Monday’s Telegraph crossword. We’re back from a week in Herefordshire to go to the Hay Festival (which is a festival about books, not about hay). Talks enjoyed by various members of the family included those by Susie Dent, Elizabeth Strout, Richard Coles, Ian Hislop, and a couple of Beano writers.
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![a signpost pointing in lots of directions, with labels including ‘Christmas Isle 12790’, ‘Tahiti 11830’, ‘[Ne]w Zealand 12090’, ‘Botany Bay 13325’, and ‘Alaska 16990’](https://i0.wp.com/bigdave44.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Captain-Cook-signpost.jpg)