Toughie No 352 by Osmosis
All Our Yesterdays
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
Today’s puzzle contains an extraordinary number of names, both of people and places, and most of the people mentioned are no longer with us. Osmosis also takes a few liberties with the wordplay, but in spite of everything I did enjoy battling with it, and there are some really good clues.
What do you think of it? Tell us in a comment (and let me know if you think I’ve got any of the explanations wrong!).
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26238
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
A welcome distraction from the aftermath of the election. Jay maintains his usual standard – particular favourites are highlighted in blue.
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.
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Toughie No 351 by Excalibur
Four Letter Words!
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
A routine puzzle from Excalibur, which had too many four letter words for my liking. There was a bit of a glitch with the grid in that 7 down was missing, but this should be corrected by now.
I have never heard of the phrase at 32 across, despite having played the game for over 25 years and play to a reasonable standard. I liked the cryptic definition at 8 down but after last Friday’s splendid challenge, overall this didn’t really give me the same buzz. Shame really.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26237
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***– Enjoyment ***
It’s Ray T’s turn this week, and as usual he’s provided an entertaining puzzle with some very good clues. I know that some people find Ray’s puzzles harder than other puzzles during the week, but all I can say is keep persevering and if you can’t get the answer and have to look between the brackets make sure that you then understand the wordplay!
Your comments, as always, are very welcome.
For new readers, the answers are present in the review but concealed between the curly brackets under each clue – if you want to reveal one, highlight the space between the brackets.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26236
Hints and tips by Libellule
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***– Enjoyment ***
I thought this crossword was a bit harder than we have had for the last couple of Monday’s, but that maybe because I stared at 1a for longer than I should have done before the penny dropped. All in all a very enjoyable crossword, although 8d seems like a clue you might see in the Quick crossword rather than the Cryptic.
If the hints aren’t enough to help you get the answer, just highlight the space between the curly brackets. Please leave us your comments!
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Ken Barlow does the Toughie!
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And what a mess he makes of it. Many thanks to Jen at the Crossword Centre for pointing it out and to Colin Blackburn for solving the “mystery”.
A week ago, Coronation Street started with Ken Barlow attempting to complete a crossword. It turned out to be Toughie 309 by MynoT (who put in an appearance at the White Horse last Saturday) and using freeze frame on the ITV player it was revealed that he was cheating by filling in random words!
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2535 – Hints
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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I really enjoyed yesterday, and it was great to meet three cyberfriends for the first time. I have a few pictures to put up on the blog soon (unless the people concerned send money in a plain brown envelope!).
A few hints to get you started.
Don’t forget that you can give your assessment of the puzzle. Five stars if you thought it was great, one if you hated it, four, three or two if it was somewhere in between.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Friday, 14th May.
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Not the Saturday Prize Puzzle – 013
Superficial Cuts by Radler
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Welcome to the thirteenth in our series of weekly puzzles.
Radler reaches his fourth on this site – and don’t forget he has a further puzzles on Alberich (see the main Crosswords page for a link).
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26235 – Hints
Big Dave’s Saturday Crossword Club
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The usual few hints just to get you started. I’m off to the White Horse soon so I will leave you all in the more-than-capable hands of the other bloggers. If you fancy coming along to the pub today, the directions are on the Cruciverbalists’ Convention post.
Don’t forget that you can give your assessment of the puzzle. Five stars if you thought it was great, one if you hated it, four, three or two if it was somewhere in between.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them. A full review of this puzzle will be published on Thursday, 13th May.
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Toughie No 350 by Notabilis
Five Star Brilliance
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment *****
Having had a very late night on Electionwatch and trying to make sense of the whole thing. I was grateful to Notabilis for giving me something to take my mind off things. This was a magnificent puzzle, with fine tough cluing leading to a considerable amount of satisfaction as the last answer entered. Anagrams are suitably masked and Notabilis is not afraid to use unusual words in the subsidiary indications. However, I am afraid that several clues defeated me.
As usual, have your say after the blog and tell us how you rated the puzzle with the star system. New visitors should know that the answers to the clues are hidden between the squiggly brackets and you should highlight the space to see the solution.
Off we go.
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