Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2617 (Hints)
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the more difficult clues and provide hints for them.
NTSPP – 095 (Review)
Not the Saturday Prize Puzzle – 095
A Puzzle by Hieroglyph
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Welcome back to Hieroglyph with an excellent crossword. All the across clues have a theatrical theme in the wordplay (if not in all of the answers). Knowing the theme is not essential to solving the clues themselves.
My favourites are highlighted in blue below.
NTSPP – 095
Not the Saturday Prize Puzzle – 095
A Puzzle by Hieroglyph
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Welcome to the latest in our series of weekly puzzles.
This week we have a puzzle from Hieroglyph. There is a theme running through the across clues, but the clues are all independently solvable.
DT 26726 (Hints)
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26726 (Hints)
The Saturday Crossword Club
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As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, an assortment of clues, including some of the more difficult ones, have been selected and hints provided for them.
Toughie 678
Toughie No 678 by Elgar
The I’s Have It!
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment *****
Greetings from the Calder Valley and not from the NHS controlled part of it! I came home yesterday and although I feel a bit drained, things are on the way to sorting themselves out although I will have to go through things a few more times before I’m clear.
It’s been a bit of a rum week in The Toughie World (I still struggle to get into the Telegraph site) and the hospital newspaper seller only carried a couple ‘as there was no demand’, so luckily some chums sent me copies. Disliked Tuesday’s intensely, Wednesdays and Thursday’s were fine and today we have Elgar who is back to being King of the Tough Toughies with this ferocious beast.
There’s a theme to the puzzle which will become obvious as the blog unfolds. We have the usual mix of difficult definitions and great surface readings and laugh-out loud moments. Days like this are a joy and the sense of achievement when you finish is amazing. Do try and persevere. Thanks to Elgar for a cracking challenge and one that will live in the memory.
ST 2615
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2616
A full review by Gnomethang
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Afternoon All! This week’s Sunday puzzle was in my opinion very straightforward – I can’t remember a faster solving time for a Virgilius puzzle. It still had all the fun in solving that we have come to expect though!.
DT 26725
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26725
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Thanks to Giovanni for an entertaining puzzle today (which I must say I enjoyed a lot more than his Toughie yesterday). Let us know what you thought.
If you want to see an answer just highlight the space between the brackets under the clue.
DT 26720
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26720
A full review by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Don’t worry, your eyes are not deceiving you! Snow will be falling on the blog until after Christmas (for the third year running).
In return for Crypticsue’s preparation of last Saturday’s hints, I offered to write the full review. I hope you enjoyed being looked after by someone else for a change!
Toughie 677
Toughie No 677 by Giovanni
Hints and tips by Bufo
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
An enjoyable puzzle from Giovanni that caused me no major problems. That now makes eight Thursday Toughies in succession that I have described as non-too-taxing, fairly gentle, benign, very straightforward, etc. I’ll run out of synonyms if this run continues
DT 26724
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26724
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
It’s always a pleasure when you examine the Quick crossword and discover that they are all the clues and the answers are single words. It means that the odds are heavily on today’s setter being Ray T. I’m not too sure about the “former” in 11 across – is this scheme still going or is it history? [It seems that Ray T is correct in that the scheme is no longer, but the interviews are still with us.]