Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25972 – Hints
Selected hints by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
First I’d like to say a special thank you to Gazza for stepping in to help me out yesterday. It all started when I switched the computer on yesterday morning, only to find that the graphics card had given up the ghost. I did eventually manage to find a very old one, but that card didn’t know what a wide screen looked like. Off to PC World where I had to buy a new motherboard, cpu, and memory to accommodate the new graphics card. At this point the hard drive crashed for the third time in as many months, so it was back again for a new drive. By the time that I had reloaded Windows and found out that the new graphics card was faulty it was nearly midnight. Fortunately I was able to use the onboard graphics controller, so I’m able to do this morning’s blog.
A much better puzzle this week from our Saturday Supremo. There is a village, but it has an indelible place in British history.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them. Peter Biddlecombe is on holiday this week, but a full review of this puzzle will still be published at 12.00 on Thursday, 9th July.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25966 – Hints
Selected hints by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
A disappointing Prize Puzzle from our Saturday Supremo. As long as you know the London Underground system you should have no problems today.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them. Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Thursday, 2nd July.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25960 – Hints
Selected hints by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Our Saturday setter shows what can be done, with the best prize puzzle for quite a while. Put the atlas away, and those books of baby names, all you need this week is to sip on a cocktail.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them. Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Thursday, 25th June.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25954 – Hints
Selected hints by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
A good puzzle which, for me, was spoilt by the return of the dreaded place names. Just to make things worse, three of the four are interlinked. As I have previously remarked, if I want a General Knowledge crossword I will do the Telegraph’s excellent Giant GK puzzle. To me it’s a lazy way of filling the grid, and I always have more respect for setters that avoid them.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them. Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Thursday, 18th June.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25948 – Hints
Selected hints by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
I really enjoyed this Saturday puzzle, and I hope that those girls and boys names and obscure towns are gone forever.
There is an expectation that the Saturday prize puzzle will be more difficult than the weekday ones, but this has certainly not been the case in the Telegraph in recent years. Being cynical, I suspect that this is a marketing ploy designed to sell more copies of the newspaper!
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them. Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Thursday, 11th June.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25942 – Hints
Selected hints by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
An altogether better puzzle this week, albeit a little easier than last week. The handful of proper nouns are clued reasonably well, and I quite liked the unusual grid.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them. Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Thursday, 4th June.
Continue reading “DT 25942 – Hints”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25936 – Hints
Selected hints by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
Once again we have a reasonable puzzle which, for me, was spoilt by the geography lesson that belongs in a general knowledge crossword. This week’s name is the same Welsh one that came up in DT 25906.
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Thursday, 28th May.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25930 – Hints
Selected Hints by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Big Dave is taking a well-deserved weekend off, so I’ve been volunteered to provide selected hints for today’s and tomorrow’s prize puzzles. As usual a full review of today’s puzzle by Peter Biddlecombe will appear next Thursday afternoon. I enjoyed doing this one, especially the cryptic clues.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25924 – Hints
Selected hints by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Without the obscure people and places this would have been a very good puzzle. There is quite a lot to enjoy and, for me at least, only one of those clues that give you that teeth-sucking moment.
Two small landmarks – this is the 200th post on the blog and earlier this week the view count topped 100,000.
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Thursday, 14th May.
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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.
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