Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26825
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from the Vega Baja where the weather has been great for the last few days – it’s been nearly as warm as the UK!
Today we have the usual great stuff from the Wednesday Wizard and with the added bonus that it’s a pangram. I think this is the first one Jay’s produced since I started doing the Wednesday blog – unless there’s been one I missed or have forgotten about! It didn’t help me much as I’d got all the obscure letters before twigging. It’s mostly straightforward, with a few anagrams nicely spread around the grid to get you going, but there’s a few I think will cause a bit of head-scratching.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26821
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from the Vega Baja. No, it’s not Wednesday! Gazza thought I might be suffering withdrawal symptoms after I missed Wednesday because of the rain so kindly offered to let me tackle this one instead – many thanks Gazza. It’s the second Giovanni I’ve blogged and both times I’ve found it an interesting experience to get to grips with a different style from my normal Jay puzzle.
I thought this was piitched about right for a Friday with a couple of gimmes and a few anagrams, to give you a start, and a few that require a bit of thought. I really enjoyed it but it will be interesting to see if others agree.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26813
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty */** – Enjoyment ***
Hola from the Vega Baja. This was the usual entertaining stuff from Jay but one of my quickest solves ever, I don’t think many people are going to need the hints today! It would have been a straight 1* had it not been for two clues where I made problems for myself. There are no obscure words and five anagrams to give you a start, which I know many of you like. I also expect that some will disagree with my rating!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26801
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Hola from the Vega Baja. Well I can’t believe it but this week it’s a year since my “Baptism of Fire” as a blogger – 2 March 2011! Where has the time gone? I’ve really enjoyed doing all the reviews and I thank you all for the nice comments that you’ve made. I hope you’ve found my efforts useful.
Over the year Jay has consistently supplied us with excellent puzzles and this one is no exception. The only problem is that sometimes they’re a bit thin on photo opportunities – not this time though!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26789
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from the Vega Baja. Another enjoyable offering from Jay which raised a few smiles and had a few d’oh moments as well. If I’ve counted right there are 4 anagrams and 2 partial anagrams so that should keep some of you happy! Also the usual quota of ‘take the first and/or last letter’ type of clue.
Unfortunately limited opportunities for pictures of scantily clad ladies!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26783
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Hola from the Vega Baja. This puzzle will be a lot easier if you can solve 10a quickly as 5 of the other across clues refer to it. I found it a little tricky as I’m not familiar with a couple of the types of 10a but I got there in the end. Some of you will probably think it a doddle! It only just got into the 3* time for me so if I knew a bit more about 10a probably only 2*.
It’s also the first time I’ve had to blog a puzzle where so many clues refer to another. It’s not easy to hint those that refer to 10a without giving 10a away. Hope I’ve done it OK. I’ve been blogging Jay’s puzzles for the best part of a year now and he’s never done one with so many linked clues in all that time so the thought’s crossed my mind that this may not be one of his, perhaps he’ll pop in and let us know.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26777
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from the Vega Baja. Another treat from Jay which I found both tricky and amusing in places. A 2* solving time (but very close to 3*) but the variation in difficulty between the clues is quite large, similar to last week’s puzzle.
There seem to be quite a lot of “take the first and/or last letter” type of clues this week but no substitution clue.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26771
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from the Vega Baja. This is a great puzzle today but it’s Jay at his trickiest for quite some time I reckon. There’s a bit of a theme in here based on today but I didn’t notice it for ages – stupid or what? I struggled for a bit but I got there when I twigged what day it is (those north of Hadrian’s Wall will probably think it’s obvious and give it only 2*). I’ve had to go for 3* because of my time but maybe it’s doing it in the middle of the night and not being Scottish that’s caused me the trouble.
I found it very enjoyable and with a good mixture of clues ranging from a couple of simple ‘gimmes’ to a couple of Toughie standard D’oh’s when the pennies finally drop. My opinion is that this is Jay at his very best – what do you think of it?
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26759
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Maybe it’s just me but I thought this was a fair bit trickier than recent Wednesday puzzles and I found the right hand side a lot harder than the left! Some excellent clues, as usual, but there are a couple that I think don’t quite work. It will be interesting to hear what others think.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26753
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Hola and a Happy New Year to one and all. This is a good start to 2012 from the Wednesday Wizard with the usual mix of clue types and smooth surfaces. I thought for a while we were going to be in 1* territory but I stalled a bit on the last 3 or 4!
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