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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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31170
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★★
Hello from Ilkley, part of the City of Bradford, last year’s UK City of Culture. That involved hosting the Turner Prize, the exhibition for which we finally got round to visiting this weekend. Here are some pictues of works by Mohammed Sami, winner Nnena Kalu, and two of Zadie Xa’s golden-floored room (in which we had to remove our shoes):
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31158
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★ – Enjoyment ★★★★
Hello. My cast is off, so I have both hands available for typing again. My left wrist is still weak though: things I’ve recently discovered I’m still unable to do include stabbing a piece of (raw) carrot with a fork, and clap. I was at a black-tie industry dinner on Friday, which mainly seemed to exist so that the people who organized it could all thank each other in turn; I ended up miming a lot of applauding.
Anyway, on to today’s Telegraph cryptic crossword, which I found perfect for those who prefer more straightforward crosswords on a Monday. There was no obscure vocabulary, so if the 13-year-old doesn’t have any homework today, I’m considering printing this out for them to do instead.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31146
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★★★
Welcome to today’s Telegraph cryptic crossword, which I hope you enjoyed as much as I did. I had planned an intro and a book review, as usual, but the time I’d set aside yesterday evening for typing them I instead spent solving Chris Lancaster’s poignant Toughie — for which I make no apology. If, like me, you aren’t really a Toughie-level solver, I still recommend giving this one a go; with lots of help from Sloop John Bee’s hints (and a little assistance from some letter-matching software), it is possible to get there.
I hope everybody has fun at this website’s Birthday Bash next weekend. Sorry I can’t be with you this year; I shall miss seeing you all. And if you haven’t heard of this, everybody reading this is welcome — click the link in the previous sentence for details.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31134
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★ – Enjoyment ★★★★
Happy new year, gang! Yes, I know that feels a long time ago now, but these are my first hints of 2026. Also Happy Kiss a Ginger Day — easy for me to celebrate, because I had the foresight to marry a redhead; to those less fortunate, best wishes for finding a suitable way to mark the occasion.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31122
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★ – Enjoyment ★★★
I find it hard to keep track of the days of the week at this time of year, but apparently it’s Monday and today’s Telegraph Crossword is at the gentler end of the range.
Welcome to all our readers, and especially anybody new to cryptic crosswords or who is only here because they found a newspaper while staying with relatives for Christmas (or discarded on a train back home). Do please leave a comment, especially if you made use of the hints or explanations — there’s no need to lurk until you complete a crossword without the hints! Big Dave’s etiquette guide covers how we do things round here.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31110
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★★★
Hello and welcome to Monday’s crossword. Yesterday our church held a brass band carol concert, where we sang Where Shepherds Watch Their Flocks by Night to the traditional tune of On Ilkla Moor Baht ’at:
That went better than last year, when the vicar introduced it as such — only to be met by a sudden look of fear on the faces of the band, who’d rehearsed the other tune. Though he still hasn’t gone with my suggestion that we should sing In the Bleak Midwinter to the tune of the theme from Hawaii Five O (try it!).
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