Big Dave's Crossword Blog – Page 1277 – Putting the words to lights – crossword clues explained in plain English

DT 26738

by crypticsue  

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26738

A Full Review by Crypticsue

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BD Rating – Difficulty ** or **** – Enjoyment ***

The Mysteron puzzle  on  Saturday the 17th  certainly divided opinions on the day.    We seemed to be evenly split between the ‘that was easy’ brigade and those like me who seriously felt that their cryptic brain cells had gone into pre-Christmas meltdown.   The difficulty rating above reflects the views of both ‘camps’.  One thing we did all seem to agree on was that it was very enjoyable.

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Toughie 692

by gnomethang  

Toughie No 692 by Petitjean

He’s back and he’s cool, tight, wicked, sick, sweet, nice, bad and chill!

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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****

Afternoon All!. Gazza is taking another break and kindly asked me if I would like to blog today – I was happy to oblige and delighted to get a fine puzzle from Petitjean. The usual trademarks are there: Food, contemporary music references, a bit of slang, some very well disguised definitions with great penny drop satisfaction plus a couple of clues where one might possibly gripe on the lack of definition by example!. I gave this 3 stars for difficulty and have highlighted my favourites in BLUE.

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DT 26747

by pommers  

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26747

Hints and tips by pommers

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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****

Hola from the Vega Baja.  Well, I managed to survive Benidorm more or less unscathed and have got home to find this excellent puzzle from the Wednesday Wizard – deep joy! For the most part it’s really only a 2* difficulty but a couple of clues had me scratching the head a bit so I drifted over into 3* time. It will be interesting to know what others think.

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DT 26746

by Prolixic  

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26746

Hints and tips by Prolixic

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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****

Good morning all. Gazza is having a lie-in today and offered me the opportunity to blog one of the weekday puzzles. After a run of fairly gentle crosswords our setter today has given us a more meaty offering for us to get our teeth into. Fortunately, no turkey in this crossword just a lot of tricky wordplay for us to savour.

My favourite clues are shown highlighted in blue. Top of the Pops for me today was 26a.

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DT 26745

by Libellule  

Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26745

Hints and tips by Libellule

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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***

I gave this two stars for difficult today, mainly because I had to think about 27d for a little while. Otherwise an entertaining if not overly cryptic themed (Winter and New Year) puzzle from Rufus today.

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Double Toughie 100003

by Big Dave  

Double Toughie No 100003 by Elgar

Watch out, Vlad is back!

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BD Rating – Difficulty *****4 – Enjoyment *****

No fluffy pink slippers today – Elgar has produced this special double-Toughie for Christmas Day. Doubling the size is bad enough, but the addition of the kind of gimmick usually only found in the more advanced barred puzzles has made this four times as difficult.

Please read the instructions given with the puzzle very carefully before starting. Discovering the theme early on, which I did, helps greatly with the puzzle, as does the Nina around the edges of each of the two halves of the puzzle.

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ST 100003 (Hints)

by Big Dave  

Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 100003 (Hints)

Hints and tips by Big Dave

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This is an online-only Christmas Day special.

As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the more difficult clues and provide hints for them.


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