Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26034
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
We have another interesting Tuesday puzzle from the setter who likes single-word answers. There’s something of a bird theme in today’s down clues, including one that I’d never heard of.
As usual, the answers, if you want to see them, are hidden inside the curly brackets – just highlight the white space between the brackets to reveal them.
Your comments, as always, are very welcome.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26028
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
This one is pretty straightforward and would make an ideal introduction for new solvers. For those who found that it did not really stretch them, if you have never attempted the Toughie then why not give it a go?
As always the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets; to reveal an answer just highlight the white space inside.
We’d love to get a comment from you with your views or queries about the puzzle or the review. So, those of you who regularly read the reviews but have never left a comment – now’s the time to introduce yourselves!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26022
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
After yesterday’s bank-holiday saunter we have a slightly more taxing excursion today, but nothing too extreme. The surface readings are excellent.
As usual the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets, so that you only see the ones you choose to see – just select the white space between the brackets to reveal the answer.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26016
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
This puzzle provides a good workout, though some will not like the large number of place names and girls’ names. As usual the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets – select the white space to reveal the answer if my hint proves inadequate!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26010
Brush Up on your (Word) Sums!
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Thanks to Gazza for stepping in at short notice yesterday when I remembered that I had a hospital appointment and realised that even I was mortal and couldn’t cram 15 hours of things to do into 45 minutes.
Quite an entertaining puzzle today and a bit of a challenge. The clues were well-written and nicely misleading, and it took me a little longer than I would have liked. There was nothing too taxing in there but a few clues just required a bit more thought than on a Monday. Mostly word-sum types clue, as well.
As usual, your comments are welcomed at the end of the blog, and you can rate the puzzle by clicking on the star system with your rating, It is a bit of fun and reflects how people are feeling at that point. Newer posters should note that first posts take a little while to appear while they are moderated, just to prevent spammers from gumming up the works.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26004
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
At one stage, when writing this review, I suspected that there was another Clued Up cock-up in the 20d clue, and I even went so far as to go out and buy the paper, only to find that the clue there is identical. Apart from that it’s a fairly straightforward puzzle, though with two words which were new to me.
As usual the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets – select the white space to reveal them. Please take the time to vote for the enjoyment factor by clicking on one of the stars at the bottom.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25998
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
We can be pretty certain that there will be no discussion today about whether an answer should be hyphenated or not, since one of the trademarks of this setter is that all the answers are single words. Another trademark is that all the clues are beautifully constructed and often amusing. I was thoroughly entertained by it – what about you? Please take the time to click on one of the stars at the bottom of the review to vote for the entertainment factor.
As usual, the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets – select the white space to reveal them.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25992
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
This is an ideal puzzle for someone starting out on cryptics, but probably not enough of a challenge for the experienced solver. Our experiment in letting everyone define the enjoyment factor is still running – please take the time to set the number of stars at the bottom of the review. Remember that you are grading the puzzle for enjoyment, not difficulty, so set the number of stars from 1 (hated it!) to 5 (the most enjoyment I’ve had all month!) or somewhere in between.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25986
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
If you like cryptic definitions you’ll love this puzzle which has lots, some much better than others. It’s challenging and entertaining, the two qualities you most want from your daily fix.
As usual the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets – just select the white space to reveal them if my hints prove to be totally inadequate!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25980
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
This is a fairly gentle challenge, but the surface readings are pretty good and there is one excellent clue. It should not trouble regular solvers for too long, and would be a good exercise for novices.
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