Toughie No 3713 by Hudson
Hints and tips by Whybird
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BD Rating – Difficulty */** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings! We have a high-quality offering today from Hudson, to whom many thanks. Perfectly pitched for a Tuesday, I feel, with a good few needing a bit of careful consideration and some less-than-common vocabulary, but nothing too tricky, although 1a had me digging around a bit. The clues are all scrupulously fair and there are many great surfaces. 1a, 3d, 5d, 9a, 14d and 19d were my particular favourites.
Please let us know how you fared and what you thought of the puzzle.
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Toughie No 3709 by Chalicea
Hints and tips by Whybird
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BD Rating – Difficulty */2 – Enjoyment ***
Welcome to another Sunny Summer Inside Page Cryptic Crossword week. I know it says “Toughie” above, and in the paper, and on the Puzzles Page, but it isn’t. We have another TINO and I only raised the difficulty level by a quarter of a star because of a couple in the NE and for the parsing of 15d. That’s not to say the puzzle is in any way poor – it’s neatly and cleverly clued as ever for a Chalicea – it was just over far too soon for me, with the notable exception of 15d. Amongst my favourites were 3d, 7d, 16a, 19a, 20d, 22d and 29a. However, I’m giving my top prize to 15d.
Thanks to Chalicea for a very pleasant puzzle.
Please let us know how you fared and what you thought of the puzzle.
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Toughie No 3705 by Gila
Hints and tips by Whybird
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment ***
Welcome to the Toughie Week! This is a rare Toughie appearance for Gila and is certainly the first chance I’ve had to Blog one of his puzzles and that always increases the nervousness, but I needn’t have worried. The two long anagrams at 1a and 1d made for a rapid start, and I was thinking about a fractional difficulty rating. Then I got bogged down on 19a and 20d, which took me longer than the rest of the puzzle, although neither clue was objectively all that tricky. Prizes go to 5d, 10d (I can never remember the spelling – now I won’t forget) and the aforesaid 20d, with 21d pinching the top spot by a nose.
The clues are all well put together, so no concerns on that score, but my minor local difficulty in the SE notwithstanding, for me, this would have sat better on the back page. This blurring of the between inside and back page difficulties seems to be a frequent occurrence recently and is something I think the Puzzles Team should address. But remind me I said that when a full-on four- or five-star puzzle lands on my watch on a quiet Tuesday morning.
Thanks to Gila for a pleasant start to a sunny Tuesday.
Please let us know how you fared and what you thought of the puzzle.
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Toughie No 3701 by Beam
Hints and tips by Whybird
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BD Rating – Difficulty */** – Enjoyment ****
Well, well! Another Tuesday appearance for King Concision… You wait ages to blog a Beam puzzle, then two come along (almost) at once. That’s all to the good as far as I am concerned! We have three six-word clues, and everything else is even more concise.
I started off at a rate of knots and was starting to wonder whether “Floughie” and “Beam” had ever been linked in a Blog. I should have known better, and the South-west corner, along with 2d put up a valiant fight, the end result being pretty much spot-on for a Tuesday. I have ticks all over the place, notably 2d, 15d, 16d, 18d, 21a and 27a, but I’m giving my Gold Star to 12a. Thanks to Beam for a very enjoyable tussle.
Please accept my apologies for the absence of illustrations and the like. In the short time since competing the puzzle and typing the blog, I’ve started an attack of man-flu or the like, and need to leave it here.
Please let us know how you fared and what you thought of the puzzle.
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Toughie No 3697 by Dada
Hints and tips by Whybird
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Well this is a genuine Toughie, no worries on that score. I thought the difficulty level was perfectly pitched for a Tuesday. There is plenty of Dada’s characteristic, quirky clueing and if his name hadn’t been plastered across the top of the page, I would have ventured a few small coins on the setter’s identity and been correct for once. 23a piqued my Inner Pedant, 5d gave it a hard poke, and I’ve abraded the top of my head a little trying to parse 25d. 12a made me smile, I liked 14d’s structure, as well as the solution being a great word, but the clear winner of my Gold Star today is the clever, smooth-surfaced 15d. Thanks to Dada for making the Tuesday morning tea work somewhat harder than of late.
Please let us know how you fared and what you thought of the puzzle.
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Toughie No 3693 by Hudson
Hints and tips by Whybird
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment *****
We have a very entertaining puzzle from Hudson today, and whilst there are a few slight obscurities, these are not at the extreme end of the scale in Crosswordland. It did take me a fair while to get into the swing, which I’m blaming on an unusual excursion into solving outdoors, but once I got a couple of handles, it all went in fairly smoothly. We have a few footballing/sporting references, plenty of geography and a couple of Addams family references, but nothing that really amounts to a theme that I can see. There is a whole bunch of clues that would get podium places in any normal week, notably 1d, 8d, 10a, 14d, 19d and 27a, but I’m giving my prize today to 23a. Thank you, Hudson, for a top-notch puzzle.
Please let us know how you fared and what you thought of the puzzle.
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Toughie No 3689 by Shabbo
Hints and tips by Whybird
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BD Rating – Difficulty */2 – Enjoyment ****
We have another excellently-clued puzzle from Shabbo today. Apart from a piece of parsing that gave me brief pause, and a piece of not-too-obscure Classical knowledge, the puzzle is very gentle. The principal issue I had was in treating Shabbo’s wonderfully constructed clues as actual crossword clues, and forcing myself to break them down into their constituents, as opposed to just taking them as statements in their own right. My favourites today, amongst many contenders, are the 1a/5a combo, 19d and 27a. Thank you (again), Shabbo, for a very enjoyable puzzle.
Please let us know how you fared and what you thought of the puzzle.
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Toughie No 3685 by Beam
Hints and tips by Whybird
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
We live in interesting and unusual times, that much is now clear, if it wasn’t already: Beam on a Tuesday? Whatever next? Anyway, whatever cosmic upheaval has brought this about, I am delighted that I have finally had the chance to blog one of his puzzles. Beam, initially in his back-page guise, and then in Toughie form, was the first setter whose individual style and craft I really started to understand and appreciate. Of course, that was back in the day when he was more verbose, with as many as 7 or 8 words a clue…
Having been working through backlog of Sunday Toughies, some featuring Beam in full-on Tough Toughie mode, I was worried about what I might face here, but he has been kind, whilst still giving us a challenge – notably parsing 5d, which was much harder than the solving part, and almost worth an extra difficulty star alone. All of the usual suspects are there (royalty, initials, sweethearts), just the innuendo lacking to spare my blushes at breakfast. Amongst many fine clues, I’m giving my prizes to 4d, 9d, 14d, 29a and 30a. Overall, another masterpiece in concise complexity! Thank you, Beam, for another excellent puzzle.
Please let us know how you fared and what you thought of the puzzle.
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Toughie No 3681 by Chalicea
Hints and tips by Whybird
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment ****
A welcome return to the Setter’s Chair for Chalicea today, and whilst this is generally at the gentle end of the spectrum (and a very much needed emollient for the bruises left after the battering from Elgar’s Friday Beast) there are a few that required a bit of thought, and a new word for me necessitating a dive into the BRB. Whilst 1a, 16a, 17d and 18d get honourable mentions, I can’t look beyond 7d for my gold medal place today. Thank you, Chalicea, for a very enjoyable start to the Toughie Week.
Please let us know how you fared and what you thought of the puzzle.
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Toughie No 3677 by Hudson
Hints and tips by Whybird
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BD Rating – Difficulty */** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings! For today, and next week, you find me in beautiful Dumfries and Galloway enjoying a loch-side lodge and the avian cacophony created by Canada and Greylag geese, with a supporting chorus of Little Grebe, Cuckoo and assorted warblers (sedge and willow primarily). So far the weather is more Mediterranean than Hibernian, so no complaints on that score!
We have a relatively gentle puzzle from Hudson today, to whom, many thanks. I added an extra half star for difficulty because of a couple of pieces of General Knowledge I didn’t have, but nothing that wasn’t clearly indicated by the clues. I was on Pangram alert after getting 25a early one with lots of other “high value” letters cropping up, but in the end, that only made the solve harder, given that we are lacking a W, so trying to squeeze one in was a waste of time. 23a, 4d and 14d occupy my podium places this week.
Please let us know how you fared and what you thought of the puzzle.
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