Toughie No 369 by MynoT
It’s in the air
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Let me first apologise to Big Dave for going away last week and leaving him with an Excalibur puzzle to blog, I did look at it on my return and I doubt that I would have been much more complimentary than he was. But to be honest I would quite cheerfully have taken last week’s Excalibur puzzle in exchange for this week’s MynoT puzzle.
I filled in all the squares reasonably quickly and then had to resort to the dictionary to check several answers and to work out some wordplay that I hadn’t fully understood. I think I now understand it all but I’m sure someone will tell me of any subtleties I may have missed. Once again MynoT includes three signs of the zodiac as answers.
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Toughie No 357 by MynoT
Hints and tips by Bufo
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
It was down to earth after last week’s gentle introduction. I gave up on this after half-an-hour’s hard slog with 3 answers missing and several others not fully understood. I then filled the gaps with the aid of TEA and Chambers but was still left with 2 or 3 answers for which I need enlightenment. I am sure that someone will oblige. I found the top half more difficult than the bottom half.
The puzzle contains several clues that contain no wordplay. This means that you stand no chance if you don’t happen to be familiar with the answer. For instance I couldn’t remember the answer to 14 across and so I had no alternative to looking it up. I also didn’t like the fact that there are also several answers (or part answers) that appear only in Chambers and not in the COD or Collins.
I have taken note of last week’s comments about not revealing the answers in my hints.
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Toughie No 344 by MynoT
Alphabet Spaghetti
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
MynoT always has something clever in his puzzles and, having failed to notice the message around the periphery in his last puzzle, I was determined to spot the trick this time. He does give us a good hint in 6a – as well as producing a pangram containing all 26 letters, he has placed each letter in alphabetical order in the answers, so that 6a-26a in turn contain A-M and 1d-21d contain N-Z. As I usually do with MynoT’s puzzles, I found this one tough going, with my man Chambers on overtime, but there was a sense of satisfaction when the final answer went in.
Let us know what you thought of it in a comment.
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Toughie No 328 by MynoT
Weights and Measures
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment **
I can’t pretend that I enjoyed this puzzle very much. In fact it was a bit of a slog with a fair few obscure words and not many laughs. You may, of course, disagree – we’d love to get a comment with your views.
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Toughie No 309 by MynoT
Brush up your Shakespeare!
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
It’s not unusual for MynoT to provide an education as part of his puzzles. Today’s lesson includes Shakespeare’s Othello, French and Greek history, motor cars and their drivers and Anglo-Saxon servants.
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Toughie No 294 by MynoT
Today I am being mostly grumpy (it was on the cards)
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *
First things first – until now I’ve always enjoyed MynoT’s puzzles; they’ve been fair and entertaining. For some reason this one just didn’t rock my boat and I think it has less to do with the clues than the awful grid. This one has only a single link to each corner and each of those links has less than 50% checking letters, so the solver is always up against it. Furthermore, in this puzzle the four central answers are given pretty tough clues, and the cross-checking letters consist of 4 Es, A, I, O and N – not at all friendly!
As for the clues – let me start by saying that (perhaps for the wrong reasons) 22d was super, a real smile-raiser. A couple I thought were pretty dodgy – 10a is convoluted and one part of it too subtle (to the point of potentially misleading), while 17d turns an uncommon meaning into a weak cryptic definition. Elsewhere there were some good moments but there were also several chestnuts, which are great for the newer solver except that the newer solver is more likely to be tackling the other puzzle. I found that the interspersed selection of card games didn’t help with the solve – indeed I only noticed them at the end!
Despite a few moments of torture this was a pretty quick solve, but at the end of it I really didn’t feel that I’d enjoyed the experience. Let’s hope I’m wrong and that the rest of you gained far more pleasure. The four-star difficulty rating I’ve given it is based on the fact that I suspect many solvers will find it difficult to break into the four corners, and that the four linking answers will prove to be troublesome.
Favourite clues, for me at least, are shown in blue.
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Toughie No 278 by MynoT
Och aye tha noo year
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment ***
The expected smattering of Caledonian verbal specialities made this a challenging solve in a few places but at least – now I’m becoming familiar with this setter’s style – I was on the lookout for them.
Unusually I’ve given this five stars for difficulty, and I can only base that on solving time; this one kept me from bed for a good few hours after saying hello to 2010. Or maybe it was the drink.
Favourite clues are in blue.
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Toughie No 258 by MynoT
A Night at the Opera
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
I bet you were all wondering where Mynot would go next, having completed a series of vowel-inspired puzzles, well now we know he has invited us all to a Night at the Opera, but without the Marx Brothers.
I must admit that when I saw the convoluted clueing on this puzzle I felt like tossing it in the cyber-bin. I persevered with it, and ended up quite enjoying the result. It is very important to latch on to the theme quickly, and an inspired guess at the 1a / 28a coupling, based on just three checking letters was the key for me, even though my first guess of “clue” for 19a proved to be incorrect.
I have just had an email from Tilsit. The last I heard was that he had lost his dongle – sounds like the title of a Charlie Drake song – so he must have now found it!!
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Toughie No 244 by MynoT
Why oh Why?
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
By the time I had worked out half a dozen clues, a pattern began to emerge. Ahh MynoT I thought. (Clued up doesn’t tell you who the setter is). Every answer has a “Y” in it, just in case you haven’t noticed.
I do think I need to remind everybody of a couple of comments from the last MynoT Toughie where all the vowels were “U”’s and also that it was the last Toughie in the “vowel” series….
Prolixic – “Maybe MynoT’s next challenge is to compile a grid where every answer has a Q or X or some other lesser used letter!”
Gazza – “I notice that there are no Ys at all in the answers, so perhaps MynoT regards Y as a sixth vowel……”
Looks like you are both “sort of” right.
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Toughie No 232 by MynoT
All U Ever Wanted!
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
I started this very slowly, getting 10a, 9d and 18a as straightforward, and then started to struggle. Then I realised what I was dealing with and things got a bit easier. If you hadn’t already noticed, the only vowel used in this crossword is a U.
There is one thing that bothers me, I wonder what MynoT is going to do next?
As usual please feel free to leave a comment.
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