Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31321
Hints and tips by Huntsman
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** Enjoyment ****
Mercifully much cooler today in Harpenden & I suspect we may even have had a drop or two of wet stuff overnight.
The usual elegance from Anthony Plumb today. I found it a wee bit trickier than yesterday’s puzzle. Smylers awarded that one a ** difficulty rating so I’ll follow suit & wait to see what others make of it.
I see Dada is over in t’other place with what seems at first glance a reasonably approachable affair.
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.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31320
Hints and tips by Smylers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★
Hello. Thank you to Falcon for covering this slot last week, when I was returning a hire car from our holiday in my usual ‘blogging time’ before work. If you want to know where we went, you should be able to triangulate our location from these distances (click to enlarge):
![a signpost pointing in lots of directions, with labels including ‘Christmas Isle 12790’, ‘Tahiti 11830’, ‘[Ne]w Zealand 12090’, ‘Botany Bay 13325’, and ‘Alaska 16990’](https://i0.wp.com/bigdave44.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Captain-Cook-signpost.jpg?resize=444,250)
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31319 (Hints)
The Saturday Crossword Club
(hosted by crypticsue)
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Toughie No 3740 by Luxor
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
Thanks to Luxor for an enjoyable and quite tricky Toughie where my progress was steady rather than meteoric.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31313
A full review by Rahmat Ali
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This puzzle was published on 8th August 2026
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Kolkata. A nice, lovely Saturday puzzle from NYDK that I enjoyed solving and thereafter writing a review of the same for your kind perusal and significant feedback.
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Toughie No 3739 by Kcit
Hints and tips by ALP
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BD Rating – Toughie difficulty * – Enjoyment ***/****
What a difference a day makes, eh? I raced through this. It’s all pretty fair and there’s no exotic vocab as such – I even vaguely remembered 26a. Moreover, the pangram was helpful. Now, I am not a horsey chap and this may well be fanciful overreach, but 1a and then 25d got me thinking. The latter (Sir Henry) trained 13a; and 12a, 20a, 8d & 9d were all racehorses. There may be others but my Google thumb was getting tired. Certainly, if there isn’t/wasn’t one called 11a (though presumably not 25a) I’m Kylie Minogue. But perhaps the heat has just further addled my brain. The floor is, as ever, yours to put me right …
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31317
Hints and Tips by Senf
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment *****
A very good Thursday morning from Winnipeg where we are enjoying seasonal temperatures with highs in the mid-20s.
For me, and I stress for me© (I have to say that for Terence), Kcit on Toughie duty so not a Dream Team Thursday! But, there is no doubt that this is the very entertaining work of the Master of Brevity. The usual one word clues and answers in the Quickie, and an appearance from the Queen, Ray T’s swEetheart, but not the plain sweetheart, in the back pager. 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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Toughie No 3738 by Donnybrook
Hints and Tips by crypticsue
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BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment ****
I thought this was a properly tough Toughie, for both a Wednesday and a Donnybrook
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31316
Hints and Tips by Deansleigh
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BD Rating – Difficulty */** Enjoyment ****
Good morning everyone, and welcome to the midweek back-pager blog. I got off to a flying start with today’s crossword, aided by the linked solutions in the first and last rows, but paused over the grass in 6d and Tracey’s coupling in 12d, although both answers are fairly gettable from the wordplay alone. My favourite clues today are 8a, the aforementioned 12d, and 16d. Many thanks to our setter.
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![a signpost pointing in lots of directions, with labels including ‘Christmas Isle 12790’, ‘Tahiti 11830’, ‘[Ne]w Zealand 12090’, ‘Botany Bay 13325’, and ‘Alaska 16990’](https://i0.wp.com/bigdave44.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Captain-Cook-signpost.jpg)