Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27914
Hints and tips by 2Kiwis
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
“Kia ora. Kiwis are normally shy creatures who spend most of the day asleep and come out only at night, but we have emerged, blinking into the light to bring you our very first review of a Wednesday puzzle. It has taken much beak scratching.
We have been solving and enjoying Jay’s puzzles for several years now and regard them as a consistent yardstick for Telegraph Cryptic Crosswords. Jay, we feel honoured to be blogging your puzzles.”
The above is a ‘cut and paste’ from DT 27603 that appeared here on 24th September 2014. Our very first blog!
A year on and we are still finding the process good fun, and we are certainly much less nervous about it than we were.
Enjoy today’s Jay, we did.
Continue reading “DT 27914”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27908
Hints and tips by 2Kiwis
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
The biggest problem of going to help out family when they are suffering from winter ailments, is what you might bring home with you. Please excuse us for coughs and sneezes throughout the review. An IT expert has assured us that they are not contagious via the blog, so you are all safe.
Jay is a model of consistency once again, perhaps slightly towards the easier end of the spectrum.
Continue reading “DT 27908”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27902
Hints and tips by 2Kiwis
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
We still keep that hoping Spring is nearly here but the succession of cold Southerly conditions that we have had recently is giving a different opinion. At least the days are getting longer and a few early flowers are making a tentative appearance.
One blogger only today as grandmother duties are required in Wellington for a few days.
A few answers in the NW corner caused a bit of head scratching but generally it went together much as we expect a Jay puzzle to do, with the usual generous helping of fun.
Continue reading “DT 27902”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27896
Hints and tips by 2Kiwis
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
We are having computer problems again. Our number 1 laptop with Windows 10 keeps turning itself off after about 5 minutes operating. The very nice Hazel on Microsoft Help Desk could not sort it out in 2 hours yesterday so we have a booked session with a Microsoft engineer tomorrow. In the meantime we are working on our clunky old slower PC and keeping our fingers crossed.
The usual high quality Jay puzzle once again today with a good level of difficulty and enjoyment.
Continue reading “DT 27896”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27890
Hints and tips by 2Kiwis
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Just a couple of hours before writing this we had the privilege of walking our youngest grand-daughter Milly to school. This is just her third week there and she happily skips along beside us holding our hands. Yesterday she proudly brought home the Totally Terrific Me Bag that she had been awarded. Ah, the joys of being grandparents. We will miss them all when we go home again at the weekend.
Another fine puzzle from Jay once again, the solving time was right at the top end of *** difficulty for us today. Thankfully, a much easier Quickie pun to cope with than last week’s one.
Continue reading “DT 27890”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27884
Hints and tips by 2Kiwis
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
For the next couple of weeks we are staying in Wellington minding three of our grandchildren. During the day, once 5yr old Milly has been delivered to school, we are free to do visitor things in the city or, on Wednesdays, write the blog. It is pouring with rain at present so the latter is a very good option. As usual, we have good fun from Jay to keep us occupied.
Continue reading “DT 27884”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27878
Hints and tips by 2Kiwis
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
This is the first blog we have done since having Windows 10 installed on our computer so hope that it all behaves itself. The installation process supplied all sorts of dramas over the weekend. Eventually the matter was sorted out for us by a retired IT wizard who lives quite close to us and we found via a friend. Now we have gratefully added Bas to our list of respected IT wizards. The other two on the list are of course Big Dave and Gazza. Where would we mere mortals be without them!
A very pleasant offering from Jay once again, with just a couple of lurking fish-hooks.
Continue reading “DT 27878”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27872
Hints and tips by 2Kiwis
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Kia ora from Aotearoa. Greetings from The Land of the Long White Cloud. It is the sort of day today that could persuade one that Spring is not too far away. Still cool at nights, just right for hunkering down in front of the log fire.
Good stuff once again from Jay.
Continue reading “DT 27872”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27866
Hints and tips by 2Kiwis
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa (Greetings, Greetings, Greetings to you all).
As it is quite a long time since we last used a Maori greeting here, we thought we would re-use this formal greeting that is often used as the opening line of an oration given on a marae.
We don’t need to play the game of “guess the setter” on a Wednesday. We know it is going to be Jay and we know it is going to be fun. Today we had to work quite a lot harder than usual too.
Continue reading “DT 27866”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27860
Hints and tips by 2Kiwis
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
We are back home now after our week away in the South Island. We managed to time things so that both our crossings of Cook Strait happened to coincide with significant Southerly weather conditions which made for rather ‘bumpy’ crossings. Feels good to be back into the regular routine again, including our ration of crosswords to solve and blog.
A word of advice. Always put a label on little containers that one bungs in the freezer. It avoids such incidents as putting thick vegetable soup instead of stewed feijoas on one’s breakfast porridge.
Jay has given us another pleasing puzzle today.
Continue reading “DT 27860”