Toughie No 3624 by Elgar
Hints and Tips by crypticsue
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BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment *****
Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
Friday’s current setter is Don Manley who is also known as Giovanni, Duck, Pasquale, Quixote, and Bradman (all punningly connected with the name Don or Donald)
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BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment *****
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BD Rating - Difficulty *** - Enjoyment ***
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Friday. Lots of complex wordplay in this puzzle, so I found myself reverse engineering the parsing of several clues. Continue reading "DT 31144"
Toughie No 3620 by Sparks
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Sparks has provided today’s enjoyable Toughie. Thanks to him.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
Continue reading “Toughie 3620”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31138
Hints and Tips by crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** Enjoyment ***
Mr K is traveling at the moment and unable to blog so at very short notice I’ve set up the clues and answers and underlined the definitions. I’ve no time to write the hints so feel free to contribute hints for individual clues – I’ll incorporate good ones in the blog later.
Update: As Gazza is also blogging the Toughie, I have stepped in to provide some hurried hints for the backpager. I’m sure I’ve made lots of mistakes but if you point them out, please tell us what you thought of the crossword at the same time.
Difficult to tell at the speed at which I was solving, parsing and typing, but it did seem to be that there were a lot of repeated clue devices throughout
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BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment *****
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BD Rating - Difficulty ** - Enjoyment ****
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Friday. This puzzle was a quick solve that managed to be very enjoyable. I congratulate our setter. Continue reading "DT 31132"
Toughie No 3612 by Osmosis
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment ****
There are a few gimmes here but in the main this required a fair bit of work. There are no anagrams (that’s fine by me) and I enjoyed the challenge a lot. Thanks to Osmosis.
Continue reading “Toughie 3612”
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BD Rating - Difficulty **** - Enjoyment ***
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Friday. Today I couldn’t fully parse one clue or get the Quickie pun, so not a great start to the year for me. Continue reading "DT 31126"
Toughie No 3608 by Elgar
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****

I hope all our readers had an enjoyable day yesterday and are now enjoying their cold turkey.… Continue reading
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BD Rating - Difficulty *** - Enjoyment ***
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the final Friday puzzle of 2025. I struggled to get on wavelength today, likely the result of trying to hint alter an indulgent Christmas Day. Continue reading "DT 31120"