Toughie No 132 by Shamus
A Potpourri of a Puzzle
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
This puzzle draws on a wide variety of words – two cities, a Scottish town, a Shetland fire festival, food and drink, a lake, an American President and a type of railway. All of the proper nouns are well-known apart from the fire festival, but I enjoyed reading about it.
Today is the big day when I am entitled to collect my pension, so it is a bit hectic here at the moment! The hints and tips may take a litle while to complete, but I will get them done.
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Toughie No 131 by Citrus
A sweet puzzle from Citrus!
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
A very enjoyable puzzle that took longer to complete than I thought it should, but then hindsight is always 20/20 vision!
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Toughie No 130 by MynoT
Hints and tips by Tilsit
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
Quite a thought-provoking and entertaining puzzle today from a setter known for producing some very challenging and difficult puzzles – last Sunday’s Enigmatic Variations puzzle of his is one that is certainly worth solving, if you have the time and patience. I found this a reasonable challenge with several new words and phrases, but it did contain another appearance of the dreaded indirect anagram (see the blog for Toughie 126!). I thought a couple of clues over-egged the pudding and I am not at all keen on one definition.
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Toughie No 129 by Elgar
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment ****
Elgar has produced another tour de force with many excellent but tricky clues. I thoroughly enjoyed battling my way through this one.
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Toughie No 128 by Osmosis
Tough, but not too Tough
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
I made steady progress through this puzzle – very few easy clues, but only one or two really difficult ones.
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Toughie No 127 by Warbler
One of the Tougher Toughies!
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment ****
I presume this puzzle was especially selected for the Bank Holiday on the assumption that most readers would have more time to solve it. A number of words that were new to me, and some new meanings of familiar words made for an interesting puzzle.
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Toughie No 126 by Cephas
Hints and tips by Tilsit
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
Maybe it’s a hangover from the hospital, maybe I am just a grumpy old devil, but today’s Toughie struck me as being not terribly tough and was no harder than a weekend puzzle.
I found this to have a whiff of the curate’s egg about the puzzle. Very good in parts with one or two bits that left something to be desired. 1 and 8 across and 9 down were clever. I didn’t like 13 across as it contained a device called “an indirect anagram” (see below), which is frowned upon by most setters.
I wasn’t keen on 21 across and 7 down I have seen several times clued as just “Cha?”, at least this had a definition to accompany it. I like clues to have a nice surface reading wherever possible and this didn’t seem right.
The other thing I wasn’t over-keen on was the grid itself. I felt there were far too many black squares.
Right! Grumble over and let’s look at the clues.If you like to do this to music, may I suggest some soothing Anton Karas zither tunes…….
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Toughie No 125 by Notabilis
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
An average Toughie with a few well-constructed clues. It certainly helps if you can get 16a early on.
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Toughie No 124 by Jed
One of the easier Toughies
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
After last Friday’s struggle, I found this one to be much easier. As always when a puzzle contains four long answers, getting at least two of these early on is the key to success.
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Toughie No 123 by Excalibur
Toughies don’t come Tougher than this!
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment *****
Was because it was the morning after the night before, or was it really tough, let me know? I struggled with this and after half an hour had managed about four clues. I did get to the end without calling on the CluedUp letter hints, but it was heavy going.
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