Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26675
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Hola from the Vega Baja. First I would like to say a big thanks to the DT crossword editor, Phil McNeill, for emailing me the puzzle at midnight last night, otherwise you might not have had a blog today! Also thanks to Libellule for organising it.
As for the puzzle – a bit trickier than the last couple of weeks, I thought, so I’ve gone for 3* difficulty. Although about 80% of it went in easy enough I sort of ground to a halt on the last 3 or 4 so I’ll blame it on brain fade at 0100CEST! The only thing wrong with this puzzle is a distinct lack of picture opportunities but I’ve had a go (and managed a car)!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26669
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty */** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from the Vega Baja. Well, I’ve easily broken my all-time speed record for a DT cryptic on this one! But, as I said last week, they don’t have to be hard to be fun and I really enjoyed solving this one. What do you think? Was I just on the right wavelength today or are Jay’s recent puzzles getting a bit easier?
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26663
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from the Vega Baja. This puzzle is living proof that it doesn’t have to be hard to be enjoyable. It’s one of Jay’s easier offerings but I had a great time solving it and there’s quite a lot of blue today!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26657
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Hola from the Vega Baja. Maybe it’s just me having my grumpy head on this morning but I don’t feel this is Jay at his entertaining best. A pleasant enough puzzle though and not too taxing. I couldn’t find an excuse for a racing car so this week you’ve got a couple of aircraft as the friend that’s staying with us at the moment is an aviation nut!
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2604
A full review by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from the Vega Baja! No, you’re not cracking up – it’s not Wednesday! I’m just standing in for gnomethang as he’s a bit short of time this week.
This is wonderful stuff from Virgilius as usual and with an added bonus, which everyone (including me) seems to have missed last Sunday, there’s a link connecting 4 of the down clues!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26645
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from the Vega Baja. A real piece of Wednesday wizardry today! Some very clever clues, good surfaces and some great ‘penny drop’ moments! I’ve given 3* for difficulty but I’ll leave that up to you to comment on. I don’t actually know my solving time as I got into the website, clicked print and it chucked me out. 45 minutes later, when I finally got back in and the puzzle opened, the clock was already running from my first attempt!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26639
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Hola from the Vega Baja. Another excellent Wednesday puzzle today. On the whole it’s not too hard but it does have the usual 2 or 3 of a distinctly tricky nature. I’ve given it 2* for overall difficulty but if you want to disagree just put your own rating in a post and I’ll average them all as I did last week.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26633
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Hello from the Vega Baja. Once more we have a Wednesday puzzle that’s not too difficult but with 2 or 3 clues to keep you on your toes! Possibly a bit heavy on clues involving anagrams (not my favourites as you probably know by now). Somehow I thought this was a bit ‘flat’ for a Jay puzzle but maybe that’s just me! As for star ratings – I’ve given 2* based on my personal solving time. If you post a comment please leave your own star rating and at about 1700BST I’ll average the lot and see what you guys think of it compared to me.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26621
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Hello from the Vega Baja on another beautiful morning!
Crosswords are always easier when solved in the morning over a cup of tea and piece of toast but this one must be a strong candidate for being the gentlest Wednesday puzzle since I started blogging, solved in less than half the time of last week’s! As is usual with a Jay puzzle there are 2 or 3 tricky clues to keep us on our toes and it’s not overloaded with anagrams, although there are enough to keep the anagram fans happy I think. Continue reading “DT 26621”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26615
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
Hello all, the man from the Vega Baja is back after a couple of weeks off while the ‘other job’ intervened. I do wish clients wouldn’t want to travel on Wednesdays – I missed Jay’s 500th because of them!
Maybe it’s just me being a bit thick in the early hours of this morning but I thought this was way above Jay’s normal difficulty level and it came as a bit of a surprise to me on a Wednesday! Only 2 across clues done on first pass but the downs yielded enough to get going. Jay seems to be making a trademark of making his across clues the hard ones!
However, once all the pennies had dropped I realised I had really quite relished the challenge so definitely 4* for enjoyment. You can all disagree with my difficulty rating if you like but, based on my solving time compared with normal, 4* is what it is! (I reserve 5* for if I have to email other bloggers for help, not had to do that yet but this one came close on one clue!). As I said, maybe it’s just me . . .
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