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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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25974
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
An enjoyable, but not too taxing, puzzle with all the answers being single words. We have both a girl’s name and a city, so there may be some criticism from those who do not like the use of proper nouns – over to you!
As usual the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets – just select the white space inside them to reveal all.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25968
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Today we have a very pleasant, but not too exacting, exercise with some well-constructed clues – perfect for doing in the garden with a long, cold drink close at hand.
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 25962
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Another Tuesday and another fine puzzle, full of well crafted clues. After last week’s debate on how difficult the puzzle was I’ll be interested to see how people react to this one – I vacillated between three and four stars but eventually plumped for three.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25956
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
After last Tuesday’s disappointing puzzle it is good to get a really solid one with some excellent surface readings. In terms of difficulty I would rate this half way between a standard cryptic and a Toughie, so newcomers should not be discouraged if they cannot finish it without assistance.
As usual the answers can be revealed, if required, by selecting the white space between the curly brackets.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25950
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
I feel as if I’ve drawn the short straw with this one. There are one or two nice clues, but these are outweighed by a number where the word order has been mangled or extraneous words introduced to try to improve the surface reading of the clue. Throw in a couple of very odd words and some “cryptic” clues which are not very cryptic, and you are left with what, to me, was a very frustrating puzzle.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25944
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Sitting in the garden with a long cool drink on a hot Summer’s day and doing gentle battle with a cryptic crossword – what more could you ask for? I thought that the clues in this one got better towards the end, with the last few down ones being excellent – or was it that the contents of my long cool drink were gradually taking effect?
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25938
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
This is a decent, solid puzzle which left me feeling just slightly disappointed because there are no really witty clues to make me laugh. Am I being over-critical and expecting too much? What do you think? – leave us a comment!
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