Toughie No 269 by Warbler
.. and Montmorency came too
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
Warbler, probably more than any other Toughie setter, produces puzzles which can range from rather tough to relatively gentle. This is one of the latter and I can’t say that I enjoyed it all that much. I’m not over fond of anagrams at the best of times, and to have eleven in one puzzle seems excessive. Also, some of the surface readings seem forced (especially 8d) and at 25a we have one of those clues where you can’t tell which part is the definition and which the wordplay until you have a checking letter.
Do you agree or do you think it’s great? In either case let us know with a comment!
Continue reading “Toughie 269”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26113
How do you like your curate’s eggs in a morning?
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
Greetings from the Calder Valley. A curate’s egg of a puzzle today, nice in parts but in others… One or two clever clues, but a couple of the definitions were of the “hits the target but not the bullseye” sort; 17 down. for example. My other grumble is the use of almost similar words in 2d and 9 across. This is just laziness by the setter and could fairly easily have been altered.
Feel free to have your say after the blog, and mark the puzzle using the star system. New posters are always welcomed, but you may have to wait a little for your first post to appear as it has to be moderated, to ensure no silly spammers get through peddling their rubbish.
Continue reading “DT 26113”
Toughie No 268 by Elgar
A trip down memory lane
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
A quick look at the CluedUp leaderboard this morning showed that only a handful of people had finished this puzzle, so I immediately had an idea as to the setter! Today’s answers include references to the fifties, sixties and seventies – making it a bit hard for the youngsters among you, but bringing smiles to the faces of the rest of us.
A lot of favourite clues today, the best of which I have highlighted in blue.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought. You can also add your assessment by selecting from one to five stars at the bottom of the post.
Continue reading “Toughie 268”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26112
Hints and tips by Gazza
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
If the recent Tuesday pattern is being maintained then this will be a Shamus puzzle, although I’ve no means of verifying that. We have a reasonable challenge today (though the number of place names may annoy some people), but I have a couple of quibbles.
Please leave a comment with your views or queries – let’s see if we can get a lively debate going!
As usual the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets. Just highlight the white space inside the brackets to reveal.
Continue reading “DT 26112”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26111
Hints and tips by Rishi
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
An enjoyable outing on Monday morning.
Continue reading “DT 26111”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2514 – Hints
Hints and tips by Big Dave
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Today the Morton-Foley Memorial Rugby Match will be played at the Upton Rugby Ground in Upton-upon-Severn between Upton Veterans and Severn Vale Barbarians. Kick-off is at 2.30pm and there will be a raffle with some excellent prizes, all of which have been kindly donated, including a boxing glove signed by Joe Calzaghe, items signed by Mark Foster, a signed and framed print celebrating Graham Hick’s 100 centuries, rugby shirts signed by the Saracens and Wasps teams and four tickets to any Worcester Rugby home game. There will also be a pig roast, just in case you get hungry. All proceeds go to St Richards Hospice, Worcester (see link in the sidebar). If you live nearby then please come along.
While today’s puzzle was a bit on the easy side, it still provided the same level of enjoyment as ever. Just as well, as I have a busy day today!
Don’t forget that you can give your assessment of the puzzle. Five stars if you thought it was great, one if you hated it, four, three or two if it was somewhere in between.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the clues and provide hints for them.
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Friday, 18th December.
Continue reading “ST 2514 – Hints”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26110 – Hints
Big Dave’s Saturday Crossword Club
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Tomorrow afternoon there will be a Charity Rugby match in Upton-upon-Severn. I’ll publish the full details tomorrow, but if you live nearby then please try to come along.
If you do the Saturday Prize puzzles on a regular basis then you will find little here today to surprise you. This is still the easiest crossword in any of the weekend quality papers. And don’t forget that this setter loves his pangrams (all 26 letters in the answers) and we have another today.
Don’t forget that you can give your assessment of the puzzle. Five stars if you thought it was great, one if you hated it, four, three or two if it was somewhere in between.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them. A full review of this puzzle will be published on Thursday, 17th December.
Continue reading “DT 26110 – Hints”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2513
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
A fairly tricky puzzle, this one. Someone on Sunday asked whether the “level at which they are set is in the gift of the setter for the day or whether the crossword editor issues guidance to toughen things up or to ease back a little?” I’m sure some attention is paid to this, and I believe the daily setters have some notion of a general desire for the Telegraph puzzle to avoid some of the tougher vocabulary and “general” knowledge that you might need for other broadsheet puzzles (or the Toughies); but I hope they don’t spend too much time agonising about difficulty, because it’s so hard to measure. Two different people of the same ability level can give you completely different reports about the difficulty of a puzzle, whether they’re beginners or experts. In this puzzle, knowing some fairly standard cryptic xwd material probably helped a lot in keeping the solving time down.
Sunsetter seems to have gone for a bit of Times crossword nostalgia here – this grid is the quirkiest one in the current Times set. It was made by former Times xwd editor Edmund Akenhead, and the big black E is his “signature”. It’s also the only Times grid with answers you might not have to solve at all – the two fully checked four-letter answers.
Continue reading “ST 2513”
Toughie No 267 by Notabilis
A pleasant wander through a minefield
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Three stars each? No, it isn’t a cop-out – it feels like a pretty fair reflection of a puzzle that seemed to have a 50/50 balance of easy and tough, clever and occasionally cumbersome clues. At the time of writing, only the explanation for 14d eludes me (assuming I’ve got the answer right). Fingers crossed, everything will click by the time it’s reached by the write-up. [It did, thanks to some help from Prolixic, who emails the name of the setter to me each day. These blogs may look serenely smooth above the surface, but as with the proverbial duck there is often a lot of furious paddling going on below! BD]
Leave a comment telling us what you thought. You can also add your assessment by selecting from one to five stars at the bottom of the post.
My favourite clues are shown in blue text.
Continue reading “Toughie 267”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26109
Hints and tips by Gazza
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
We have another fine puzzle for Giovanni, probably not as tricky as last Friday’s but nevertheless a good workout.
Following the discussion on Wednesday’s blog about the style of the hints I have tried today not to reveal directly any part of the answers (except for the hidden contents of the curly brackets of course!). The result is, I think, more like the hints for the weekend prize puzzles than my usual reviews. I really need some feedback as to how you like it and which style you prefer – should I persevere with this method or revert to the old one? Note that if you click on any of the links you will still see (bits of) the answer.
Continue reading “DT 26109”