Toughie No 786 by Osmosis
Hints and Tips by Tilsit
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from the Calder Valley. Our glorious leader is having serious computer problems, so it’s a very brief set of notes today about the clues. A nice puzzle from Osmosis, very much in his normal style. Some really nice clues that bring a smile to the face.  Although I managed to solve most of the clues, I did have trouble working out how the indications worked, as I’d worked out the answer from the definition alone. Some of the clues were unnecessarily complicated, to my mind.
Please 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. Favourite clues are highlighted in blue.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26887
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **/*** – Enjoyment ***
Good morning from a storm-racked Devon. This is my first blog this month and I’m returning to duty with a Giovanni puzzle which has a mixture of pretty easy clues with a few trickier ones thrown in. Let me know how you got on and how you liked it.
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Toughie No 785 by MynoT
Downhill all the way?
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
MynoT continues to work his way through the alphabet. At least he’s now got past halfway and so it will be downhill from now on. But, to be fair, this was a reasonable puzzle of average difficulty.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26886
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
Hi, it’s me once again! Well, while the cat’s away . . . and it gives everyone else a day off!
This looks like a RayT to me and it’s a bit on the tricky side of being tricky on a day for very tricky crosswords! At least he’s put his risque head back on so quite a few laughs as the coinage eventually dropped but it’s not easy by any means. I’ll be interested to see what you think about it. I really thought it was a lot of fun though – I think BD may regret allowing me to blog this one! Don’t think I’ve ever gone to 5* for enjoyment before but I did think this was brill, and it got better as I wrote the review! I’m back in ‘middle of the night mode’ so it might not be as tricky as I thought but I’ll leave that for you to judge, I’m just going on my own solving time. I make no apologies for the 5* enjoyment though! What do they say – the best fun I’ve had with my clothes on!
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2641
A full review by crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
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As Libellule put it so nicely, Sunday cryptics have become a ‘thing of beauty’, and this one which appeared on the 27th May was no exception.  This makes it very difficult for the two of us that have to review them as it is so difficult to find new and different superlatives to use.  I will just say thank you once again to Virgilius, your crosswords are the perfect way to start any Sunday.
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Toughie No 784 by Elkamere
A proper little Toughie?
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
No, I’ve not blogged the wrong puzzle by mistake! Gazza thought I might be at a loose end with Pommette being away so offered me the chance to do my first Toughie blog.  I couldn’t refuse but it’s been a bit like sailing ‘Firenze’ across the Irish Sea in a force 8 gale – I could do it but I’m not sure I really needed the stress!  The date is quite apposite for my first Toughie blog though – it’s the anniversary of D-Day! Oh well, Once more into the Bleach!
Today Elkamere has given us a middling difficulty Toughie with some fine clues. Due to a bout of on-the-day blogger’s panic I didn’t enjoy it as much as I should have done but it grew on me as I was writing the review. It probably deserves the fourth star just for 1a.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26885
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty **/*** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Ottawa where we are just emerging from a spell of cool, wet weather (much like Britain, I gather) into a hopefully prolonged period of more seasonable weather.
Today, we have a typical offering from Jay with plenty of requirements to select specified letters (first, last, inner, outer, odd, even) from words, but no substitution (X for Y) type clue.
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Toughie No 783 by Messinae
Rainy Day Women
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment **
A very easy Toughie for a very rainy Jubilee Bank holiday. Being able to guess the songs from just a few letters helped, but the whole puzzle was done and dusted very quickly.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26884
Hints and tips by Crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
I must admit to a slight disappointment that there wasn’t a Jubilee theme to this crossword which I found slightly trickier than usual for a Tuesday. This might  have been caused by on-the-day blogger’s panic, so I will be interested to see what others think.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26883
Hints and tips by Libellule
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment ***
I hope everybody is enjoying the Jubilee holidays. This seemed to be the most straightforward Rufus crossword I have done for some time, what did you think?
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