Toughie No 533 by Petitjean
A Bit Meaty
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Afternoon All!. A slight change around to the Toughie reviews. Bufo will be with you tomorrow having swapped with Tilsit who then kindly vacated the chair to let me have a go. There were some lovely clues here and some excellent surface readings as well as some ‘easy hit’ clues to get you started. Thanks to crypticsue for helping me with the wordplay in four clues. Continue reading “Toughie 533”
Toughie No 513 by Petitjean
Hints and tips by Bufo
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
I enjoyed this one and found it to be just above average difficulty. I had no real problems filling in the answers but there were a couple of things I had to check once I’d finished.
Continue reading “Toughie 513”
Toughie No 497 by Petitjean
Hints and tips by Bufo
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
A perfectly reasonable puzzle but I never really warmed to it.
Continue reading “Toughie 497”
Toughie No 484 by Petitjean
The French Connection
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
I can’t pretend that I enjoyed this one a great deal (and I don’t think that’s just down to post-Ashes tiredness – well-done to the lads!). There is the usual CluedUp problem of having to hunt around to find the full enumeration for several clues, then we have no less than 13 anagrams to plough through. A bit 15d for me, although Petitjean would probably say “de trop” since he’s started to give his indicators in French! I’m sure that some people will have loved it so let’s have a full range of comments!
This is my last review of 2010 so may I wish everyone a Very Happy New Year – see you all in 2011.
Continue reading “Toughie 484”
Toughie No 469 by Petitjean
Hints and tips by Bufo
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Sorry about the late posting but I had to go out for a few hours. I thought the puzzle of average difficult and, even though I’m not a great fan of Petitjean’s clueing, I thought it was of reasonable standard.
Continue reading “Toughie 469”
Toughie No 454 by Petitjean
Where have all the hyphens gone?
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment **
A moderately difficult Toughie is made more difficult than it should be by careless enumeration. While 26 across correctly hyphenates the adjectival part of the answer, the same has not been applied to 2 down. A couple of other clues should, in my opinion (and that of the dictionaries that I consulted) have hyphens.
Continue reading “Toughie 454”
Toughie No 440 by Petitjean
A Dedicated Follower of Fashion
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
I enjoyed this puzzle by Petitjean much more than I had his last one. It doesn’t have as many obscurities and it has a nice variety of clues, with a mini-theme covering items of clothing. It does have what this week seems to be an obligatory homophone which doesn’t work.
Your comments are welcome as always, and please remember to show how much you enjoyed the puzzle by clicking on one of the stars below.
Continue reading “Toughie 440”
Toughie No 422 by Petitjean
Too esoteric for its own good?
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from the Calder Valley and a really ferocious Toughie to close the week. I have to admit this was quite a struggle and I think that had I not been on blogging duties today, this may well have been put in my “revisit later” puzzle, which rarely gets accessed.
Continue reading “Toughie 422”
Toughie No 404 by Petitjean
Read My Lips
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment **
I can’t say that I enjoyed this puzzle a great deal. You have to admire the ingenuity and some of the surface readings are really amusing, but 14 of the 30 clues involve anagrams (with some weird indicators), including two-thirds of the down clues. There’s one clue (7d/8d) where I can’t work out the wordplay, so I hope that someone will be able to explain that one.
Let us know what you thought of it in a comment and please don’t forget to click one of the stars below to show how much you enjoyed it.
Continue reading “Toughie 404”
Toughie No 386 by Petitjean
Nürburgring
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
A generous smattering of F1 references in this offering from Petitjean, and my first review of a puzzle by this setter. It was difficult to pinpoint an accurate BD rating and 4/4 may be a compromise. I have a little knowledge of motorsport so some answers were easier for me than they may be for others; combined with some obscure answers elsewhere you may find it warrants 5 stars for Difficulty. For Enjoyment I was close to giving it 5 stars as there are some lovely clues, and certainly no quibbles worth dwelling on. Perhaps what took the edge off was the frequent use of initial/last letters for the sake of tying in with the theme – when it’s not done well it looks a little desperate, and in fairness that’s not the case in this puzzle.
Immediately noticeable, on printing the puzzle, was a clutch of long clues. For me they ran to about ¼ of a second page (hence my brilliantly observed and impossibly clever choice of title) whereas previous puzzles have always fitted on one page with a little spare space above the footer. I’ve been called “Mr Short and Snappy” before – hopefully it was a reference to my cryptic clues – so very long clues can feel like a bit of a slog. But again, as with the initial/last letters thing, the long clues here didn’t seem tortured – in most cases they’re actually very smoothly presented.
I’ve highlighted my favourite clues in blue – please let us know about your favourites too.
Leave a comment telling us what you thought. You can also add your assessment by selecting from one to five stars at the bottom of the post.
Continue reading “Toughie 386”