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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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31242
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★★
Hello. Here are hints and explanations for today’s Telegraph crossword. This took me a little while to complete, but if you’re the kind of solver who does the anagrams first, rather than needing to leave them till later when there are lots of crossing letters, then you can probably knock off a difficulty star.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31230
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★★★ – Enjoyment ★★★
Welcome to the Telegraph crossword for Bank Holiday Monday. I treated myself to a lie-in, not having to solve and blog before starting work, and perhaps shouldn’t have done: this took me longer to solve than any other crossword I’ve hinted! How did you get on?
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31218
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★★
Good morning, and welcome to Monday’s crossword. I think most will find this easier than the past couple of Mondays’. I actually finished this quickly, and those who rate difficulty purely on time may categorize this as just ★. But after my first pass there were still left many gaps in the grid, and a few of the clues have quite involved wordplay, so I think this is less suitable for a complete beginner than the puzzles I rate as ★, and ★★ it is.
Spouse and I are just back from a long weekend away to celebrate my birthday, which was a square number this year. See these pictues to work out where we went:
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31206
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★★★ – Enjoyment ★★★
Happy Easter from Ilkley, where for once the sunrise was actually visible at our Easter Day Son-Rise service by the Cow & Calf rocks:
(Click to enlarge.)
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31194
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★★
Hello. I’d claim it’s always a good time to visit Ilkley, but now’s a particularly good time, with it looking like this:
(Click to enlarge.)
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31182
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★★★
Hello from Ilkley. Here are some photos from a day trip this weekend — where did we go? (People from Yorkshire, please let others answer first!)
I liked all the clues in today’s Telegraph cryptic crossword. I got fewer answers on the first pass than I often do on Mondays, so I’ve rated it ★★ rather than ★ for difficulty. But several of the ones I skipped were those I’d successfully identified as anagrams, which I find hard to work out until I have crossing letters; if you’re somebody who can solve anagrams straight away, you may find it easier than I did.
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