Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2526
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Three Brian Greer trade-mark clues in this puzzle – the long hidden word at 23A, and the two all-in-ones at 3D and 6D. Moderate difficulty and the usual elegant clues – away we go …
A few minutes late with the blog as I couldn’t get onto CluedUp this morning – clues below courtesy of a copy wisely kept by Dave. I’d already decided not to give every last shred of wordplay any more – let me know if I’ve left something out that needs explaining.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2525
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
At first glance, not a very remarkable puzzle. But there are top-class surface readings throughout – a side of cryptic clues that sometimes gets ignored. Not by this setter, and after a few goes at puzzle writing myself lately, I know how difficult this is.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2524
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Back to normality after the Valentine puzzle – no theme, and unusually for BG, no &lits/all-in-ones. But there are a couple of unusual bits of wordplay. Well I said no theme, but several clues and wordplays have sporting references. Difficulty: pretty gentle.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2523
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
As you probably expected, your Sunday setter took full advantage of the puzzle appearing on Valentine’s day. Every clue is about romance, and so are many answers.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2522
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** –Enjoyment ****
A puzzle of about average difficulty for me. I think part of the difficulty is created by longish definitions – there are only 5 single-word ones in this puzzle, compared 11 in the considerably easier Saturday puzzle.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2521
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
I found this puzzle rather harder than some recent Sunday ones, and it took me about twice as long. I’m pretty sure that 23D was one of my last answers, and 25A took quite a while too. I also put in a dud answer at 18A. So if we had multiple pictures, I’d be using the dunce’s cap one which makes too-frequent appearances at Times for the Times.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2520
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment *****
Sorry for the delay – I got engrossed in the tennis and then forgot about my blogging duties until a lunch at the local Italian, so this comes to you through a gradually diminishing haze of Pinot Grigio and Amaretto.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2519
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Another Sunday puzzle that’s easy for old hands but precisely clued.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2518
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
A very straightforward puzzle for me, but I won’t grumble this week – there’s plenty of room for puzzles with well-written clues that aren’t fiendishly difficult.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2517
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment *****
A pretty straightforward puzzle this one – with one setter’s slip that’s already been acknowledged. Now that Sunday solvers are used to a different style of puzzle, I wonder whether the difficulty level might be increased just a bit?
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