Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25918
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
Started this off very fast but slowed down in the bottom half. A saying to ponder from one of the Times for the Times bloggers: “Some of the words in a clue are there for their meaning, and some for their content”. As a solver, it’s well worth asking “why is this particular word used”, and any passing setters will already have realised that concealing the words included for their content can be quite difficult.
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Toughie No 142 by Shamus
Hints and tips by Tilsit
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
Nice to see the Toughie live up to its name today with a fairly challenging solve. As I am solving onscreen at the moment, I suffered several “Your solution is wrong” messages before finally getting the all correct one, which came as a great relief.
Incidentally, someone managed to solve the DT Wednesday Crossword on line in 2 minutes and 36 seconds according to the statistics. Presumably they will be taking part in the final of the Crossword Championships in Cheltenham later this year. Messrs Goodliffe and Biddlecombe should be quaking in their boots.
Anyway, back to today. I think we can put Shamus firmly into the Ximenean camp with this cluing, all absolutely sound.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25922
Today’s hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
This puzzle is one of the easiest we have had for some time, but it is full of cleverly-constructed clues with excellent surface readings. It would be a very good introduction for someone new to cryptics. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
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Toughie No 141 by Campbell
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
This is an average sort of Toughie with a man’s name, a woman’s name, a river, an English town, a couple of Greek mythological characters, a historian, a poet and a festival all making an appearance. As usual you can reveal the answer by selecting the white space between the curly brackets if my hints are not good enough.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25921
Hints and tips by Tilsit
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
A superior puzzle with some very good clues and on the whole a really enjoyable solve. I’m left with the impression that the compiler wants you to do a fair bit of thinking outside the box with some of these main or subsidiary definitions.
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Toughie No 140 by Osmosis
A Toughie to savour
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
You have to work to get the answers in this very enjoyable puzzle. One or two clues have wordplay that takes a bit of unravelling, but there is nothing here that is beyond the capabilities of the average Toughie solver.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25920
Today’s hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
This is another decent puzzle from our normal Tuesday setter, whose trademark is to have only single-word answers. Some will decry the layout of the grid, with each of the corners pretty isolated – but look on the bright side, you get four puzzles for the price of one!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25919
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *
Unfortunately Tilsit is not well enough to review today’s puzzle. After doing it, I know how he feels! I looked through to see if I could say a few nice words about it.
Don’t forget the Clue of the Week competition – cast your vote now. I don’t think I will be putting any of today’s forward for this week.
Tilsit hopes to be back later this week, and I’m sure you will join me in wishing him well again soon.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2482 – Hints
Selected hints by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Sunday puzzles always used to be predictably bad, full of awkward constructs – now they are predictably good!
For the weekend prize crosswords I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them. A full analysis of this puzzle will be available at 12.00 next Thursday, 7th May.
Some hints to get you started:
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25918 – Hints
Selected hints by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
A better puzzle than last week, but still not good enough for the top slot of the week – the flagship Prize puzzle. The dreaded place name makes an unwelcome return, but at least there are no girls’ names, or even boys’ names.
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Thursday, 7th May.
Continue reading “DT 25918 – Hints”