Enigmatic Variations 1681 (Hints)
Not Mentioned by Kcit
Hints and tips by Gabriel
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Kcit is also Phi and is based in NZ – thus the pseudonymic inversion I assume – and a prolific setter (e.g. Listener, Inquisitor and the dailies). He tends to be very fair, rigorous and on the harder end of the spectrum. The title is tantalizing and it only made sense once I had made some sense of the theme. Actually that’s pretty typical for me. Some people though seem to be able to telepathically infer the theme from the title alone which of course accelerates the solving process. I invariably find that it’s the last piece of the jigsaw that clicks into place. In this case, I speculated that it had something to do with “unmentionables”.
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Toughie No 3419 by Kcit
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
It’s Kcit’s turn in the Toughie slot. Thanks to him for an enjoyable puzzle.
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Toughie No 3395 by Kcit
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty */** – Enjoyment **/***
I’m thankful that I’ve got a shortcut in Word for the word ‘abbreviation’ because there are an awful lot of them here. The puzzle didn’t pose any great problems and really belongs at the start of the week rather than on a Thursday. Thanks to Kcit.
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Toughie No 3367 by Kcit
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty */** – Enjoyment **
This is just about as straightforward as any Thursday Toughie I’ve blogged and I didn’t really warm to it. You may agree or disagree – please let us know. Thanks to Kcit.
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Toughie No 3339 by Kcit
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
The first few answers went in very quickly and I thought this was going to be pretty straightforward. It did get a wee bit trickier towards the bottom but I don’t think this will cause regular Toughie solvers too many problems.
Thanks to Kcit.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
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Enigmatic Variations 1656 (Hints)
Transfiguration by Kcit
Hints and tips by The Numpties
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Kcit needs no introduction for EV solvers. Dave Hennings’ crossword database tells us that he has been setting them since 1993.… Continue reading
Toughie No 3319 by Kcit
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
I found this puzzle pretty straightforward for a Thursday Toughie but with not a lot of sparkle. Thanks to Kcit.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
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Toughie No 3303 by Kcit
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
Kcit’s turn has come round again – thanks to him. I didn’t find a lot of sparkle here and the large number of ‘delete last letter’ constructs does make blogging a bit wearisome.
There is a bit of a theme here identified in 26a though I’m pretty sure I’ve not found all the elements.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
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Toughie No 3267 by Kcit
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **/***
I had a bit of a shock this morning. The method that I’ve used to paste the clues seamlessly from the Puzzles site into my Word document for the last 15 years doesn’t work with the new site; that resulted in a lot of fiddling about and swearing. So, if you find any typos in the clues here it’s down to me.
Kcit has given us a puzzle containing his usual large ration of abbreviations and lots of letter deletions. On the plus side he’s been very sparing with the number of anagrams. Thanks to him.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
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Toughie No 3245 by Kcit
Hints and tips by ALP
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment **/***
As a hack, I’ve loved interviewing authors. They’re (generally) intelligent, they spend way too much time on their own so they’re often girlishly chatty and, most importantly, they always say yes to a sit-down because they’ve invariably got a book to promote.
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