Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English
Hints and tips for completing the regular Daily Telegraph Cryptic crosswords
Toughie No 3676 by Osmosis
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
This is not Osmosis at his most fiendish but it is still worthy of the Friday Toughie slot. Thanks to him for the very enjoyable challenge with well-disguised definitions and clever wordplay (and extra kudos for forswearing anagrams).
Continue reading “Toughie 3676”
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BD Rating - Difficulty *** - Enjoyment ****
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Friday. I thought that today’s puzzle was a lot of fun with many penny drop moments producing smiles. Continue reading "DT 31222"
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This puzzle was published on 18th April 2026
BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Kolkata. This was a musical show-themed puzzle, but a truly tough Saturday challenge from the setter. I greatly enjoyed solving it and writing this review; I look forward to your kind reading and precious feedback. Continue reading “DT 31217 (Full Review)”
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BD Rating – Toughie difficulty */** – Enjoyment *****
I thought this was pleasingly gentle for a Thursday, especially from Dharma. As ever, it’s all about wavelength, of course, so mileage may differ. But I’ve always found him immensely doable and fun. Still, I have begrudgingly tacked on an extra half just to acknowledge some of the arguably trickier wordplay. An absolute belter either way. Over to you. Continue reading “Toughie 3675”
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BD Rating – Difficulty 2.5* – Enjoyment 4.5*
For those who honour it, a very good St George’s Day from Winnipeg where Spring may finally have sprung with rain as the only precipitation in the 14 day weather forecast!
For me, etc© (I have to say that for Terence), if this were a Dada on Sunday I might be using the term quirky, once again not half of a Dream Team Thursday, Dharma on Toughie duty today, but no doubt that this is the work of the Master of Brevity. The usual one word clues and answers in the Quickie, and appearances from the Queen and his swEetheart, but no second ‘sweetheart’ this week, appearing in the back pager with an average of 5.25 words per clue. Also, like Dada, Ray T still seems to be making occasional use of a personal thesaurus. I hope you have your Crimson Tomes at hand!
Remember that Reading the Hints before commenting can be beneficial!
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BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty * – Enjoyment ***
A typical Beam crossword which only took a tiny bit longer to solve than one of his Thursday back pagers
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BD Rating – Difficulty **/*** Enjoyment ***
Good morning everyone, and welcome to the midweek back-pager blog. For me, this was the hardest solve of the week so far. It took me a while to get the three long anagrams 1a, 1d and 8d, but once I’d cracked these everything else fell into place. I liked the cricketing misdirection in 17a and the dull French group in 3a, but my favourite today was the pachydermal pothead in 28a. There is also an excellent Quickie pun. Many thanks to our setter.
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BD Rating – Difficulty */** Enjoyment ****
Well it’s another lovely sunny day here in Harpenden though still deceptively chilly. No golf today to dash off to so I’ve actually read through what’s written though that’s still no guarantee of a mistake free set of hints.
I thought today’s puzzle about on a par with yesterday in terms of difficulty & very enjoyable it was too. As you would expect from an Anthony Plumb production (I assume) it was concisely clued throughout with humour & a hint of topicality thrown in.
I see Dada is back in t’other place & I hope for Whybird’s sake he’s in a better mood than on Sunday.
Fingers crossed for a home win tonight for my team, Coventry City. We will be confirmed as champions of the Championship with another 3 points – the cherry on the cake having secured promotion last week back to top tier after a 25 year absence & very nearly falling out of the league.
As usual there is a selection of music to enjoy or ignore.
In the hints below the definition element of each clue has been underlined, anagrams are CAPITALISED & the crossword technique “indicator words” are in brackets. The answers are concealed under the Click Here buttons. Please leave a comment below telling us what you thought & how you got on with the puzzle.
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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