Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26693
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Canada where we are bracing for the first frost of the season. Today, we have a quintessential Jay puzzle, populated with lots of charades, plenty of clues where one must either take or delete the first, last or middle letters, and sprinkled with a few substitutions (A for B type clues). It took me longer than normal to complete it – but that is undoubtedly due to attempting to watch a hockey game at the same time (and, yes, my team did win).
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26687
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from the Vega Baja, where Autumn has set in – jeans, socks and rugby shirt required today!
A super puzzle today from the Wednesday Wizard with some fantastic clues. I thought it a bit trickier than his recent offerings but very entertaining and I nearly gave it 5* for enjoyment, but that might be just due to my mood at the moment. A few ‘D’ohs’ and a few bangs of the head on the table as the pennies dropped but that may be due to having visitors and therefore more than the usual excessive alcohol intake!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26681
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from the Vega Baja. The usual Wednesday wizardry from Jay this week. Not too taxing on the whole but a couple of slightly tricky ones to keep us alert! I did really enjoy this one though and there’s a lot of blue today. It must be the lack of stress from not having to try for ages to get into the website so thanks to BD and Phil for the new service! Just hope it’s not needed for too long.
Like last week the picture opportunities are a bit limited but my Technical Director has been taken back on as a consultant today (at exorbitant rates) and is currently searching for a suitable video clip for 22a so many thanks to her!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26675
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Hola from the Vega Baja. First I would like to say a big thanks to the DT crossword editor, Phil McNeill, for emailing me the puzzle at midnight last night, otherwise you might not have had a blog today! Also thanks to Libellule for organising it.
As for the puzzle – a bit trickier than the last couple of weeks, I thought, so I’ve gone for 3* difficulty. Although about 80% of it went in easy enough I sort of ground to a halt on the last 3 or 4 so I’ll blame it on brain fade at 0100CEST! The only thing wrong with this puzzle is a distinct lack of picture opportunities but I’ve had a go (and managed a car)!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26669
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty */** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from the Vega Baja. Well, I’ve easily broken my all-time speed record for a DT cryptic on this one! But, as I said last week, they don’t have to be hard to be fun and I really enjoyed solving this one. What do you think? Was I just on the right wavelength today or are Jay’s recent puzzles getting a bit easier?
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26663
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from the Vega Baja. This puzzle is living proof that it doesn’t have to be hard to be enjoyable. It’s one of Jay’s easier offerings but I had a great time solving it and there’s quite a lot of blue today!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26657
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Hola from the Vega Baja. Maybe it’s just me having my grumpy head on this morning but I don’t feel this is Jay at his entertaining best. A pleasant enough puzzle though and not too taxing. I couldn’t find an excuse for a racing car so this week you’ve got a couple of aircraft as the friend that’s staying with us at the moment is an aviation nut!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26651
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Fortunately, this puzzle is not overly difficult as I was working “without a net” today. Problems with the DT web site caused major headaches (and no doubt loss of sleep) for Big Dave who was able to ship the puzzle across the Atlantic but not the completed grid. I find this to be a typical Jay puzzle, one that leans a bit toward the easier end of the scale.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26645
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Hola from the Vega Baja. A real piece of Wednesday wizardry today! Some very clever clues, good surfaces and some great ‘penny drop’ moments! I’ve given 3* for difficulty but I’ll leave that up to you to comment on. I don’t actually know my solving time as I got into the website, clicked print and it chucked me out. 45 minutes later, when I finally got back in and the puzzle opened, the clock was already running from my first attempt!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26639
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Hola from the Vega Baja. Another excellent Wednesday puzzle today. On the whole it’s not too hard but it does have the usual 2 or 3 of a distinctly tricky nature. I’ve given it 2* for overall difficulty but if you want to disagree just put your own rating in a post and I’ll average them all as I did last week.
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