Toughie No 644 by Giovanni
Wisdom of The Fool
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
This is only marginally more difficult than one of Giovanni’s Friday back-pagers though it probably has more clues where a smattering of general knowledge is useful. As is often the case I got both long anagrams from the enumeration first and worked out the fodder afterwards (which is why I’m not very keen on long multi-word anagrams). There’s a factual error in 2d but that didn’t impair my enjoyment of the puzzle.
Tell us what you thought of it and please remember to indicate how entertaining you found it by clicking on one of the stars below.
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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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Toughie No 643 by Petitjean
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the …..!
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
A relatively easy solve of a puzzle that will not rank as one of Petitjean’s best.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26674
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
We have an enjoyable but not too strenuous puzzle today from a mystery setter. Let us know how you got on with it.
If you’re still stuck on a clue after reading the hint you can reveal the answer by highlighting the space between the curly brackets.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26673
Hints and tips by Libellule
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
A pleasant return to my usual Monday morning slot with a typical crossword from Rufus.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2608 (Hints)
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the more difficult clues and provide hints for them.
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Not the Saturday Prize Puzzle – 086
A Puzzle by Gazza
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Welcome back to Gazza with another Ray T type crossword with wit and innuedno and smoothly built clues. My favourites are shown in blue below.
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Not the Saturday Prize Puzzle – 086
A Puzzle by Gazza
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Welcome to the latest in our series of weekly puzzles.
This week we have another fine puzzle from Gazza.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26672 (Hints)
Big Dave’s Saturday Crossword Club
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As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select an assortment of clues, including some of the more difficult ones, and provide hints for them.
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Toughie No 642 by Notabilis
Lots of four letter words (uttered and entered)!
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
DT Website rating: minus 4539
Greetings from the Calder Valley. As if the day wasn’t bright and sunny enough, we have a splendidly fiendish puzzle from the master setter Notabilis. My plan of action was to print off the puzzle and take it to a hospital appointment this morning. However, due to the dreadful Telegraph website, my plan almost did not come to fruition. I spent an hour between midnight and 1 am trying to get into the site without success. Luckily an American chum persevered and managed to get in after about 40 attempts and was able to send me a copy. Come on, Telegraph IT experts, get your act into gear, or just follow the Guardian’s experience and go free and ditch the competitive elements.
Rant over. Back to the puzzle. When I looked through the clues, I thought that 11 across presented a good place to start and was rather pleased when I entered DIVA (a reversal of AVID – extremely keen). Oh dear! I was wrong. I did think it a bit odd that the next clue I got actually had AVID inside it (9 across), but I was completely stymied in the right corner. However, when I realised what 5 down was, all fell into place. The mark of a great crossword is being nicely deceptive, and today’s challenge achieved it. Thanks to Notabilis for an excellent battle.
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