Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26231
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **– Enjoyment ***
We have a very gentle puzzle from Shamus today to get us back into the groove after the bank holiday. Members of the CC should have no excuses for not completing this one, but as we’ve said often in the past, being relatively easy does not mean that it cannot be entertaining, and this one has some very enjoyable clues.
Let us know your opinion in a comment, and please take the time to indicate how much you enjoyed the puzzle by clicking on one of the stars below.
New readers may not be aware that the answer to each clue is concealed between the curly brackets under the clue – just highlight the space between the brackets to reveal it.
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NTSPP – 012 Review
A Puzzle by Prolixic
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Many thanks to Prolixic for providing us with another really good puzzle for a wet Bank Holiday Saturday. We’re getting used to his clever wordplay, lovely bits of misdirection and very smooth (and witty) surface readings, as well as the good variety of clue types. If I have one minor criticism it’s that the cryptic definitions (16a and 6d) don’t quite come up to the excellent standard of the other clues, but as Tilsit has explained in the past, good cryptic definitions are the most difficult clues to produce.
In terms of difficulty I would rate this one **** on the Daily Cryptic scale. I know that some comments have been left already, but I’m sure that Prolixic would welcome as much feedback as you can provide.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26230
Hints and tips by Libellule
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BD Rating – Difficulty **– Enjoyment ***
First of all I would like to congratulate (as I suspect will many of his fans) Rufus on his achievement of having 1,000 puzzles printed in the Daily Telegraph.
Today’s crossword is the usual gentle start to the week, with its own nina.
If this was a normal Monday I might complain about the number of anagrams, and the double reference to a particular school, but because it’s a special day I am going to say nothing. Just sit back and enjoy!
As usual, if you cannot work out the answer from the hint, just highlight the space between the curly brackets. Please feel free to leave a comment and/or congratulate Rufus!
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2534 – Hints
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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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, 7th May.
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Not the Saturday Prize Puzzle – 012
A Puzzle by Prolixic
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Welcome to the twelfth in our series of weekly puzzles.
Prolixic reaches his fourth on this site – and don’t forget he has a further puzzle on DIY COW (see the main Crosswords page for a link).
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26229 – Hints
Big Dave’s Saturday Crossword Club
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The usual few hints just 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. A full review of this puzzle will be published on Thursday, 6th May.
Continue reading “DT 26229 – Hints”
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Toughie No 346 by Firefly
Bit by bit
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
A pretty straightforward solve today and one of those rare occasions when all corners of the grid were filled at about the same pace. Three stars each pretty much sums it up – a good, solid puzzle with no fireworks but (almost) no complaints either – just a couple of things that looked marginal; 16d but only for pedantic reasons, and 17a which looks a little wrong.
I did notice that several clues made use of initial letters; it didn’t grate, but as the puzzle went on these became easier to spot as I was half expecting them.
Favourites are 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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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2533
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *****
Less difficult than last week, but I think still a notch harder than most of the puzzles written in the early days of Brian Greer’s spell as the Sunday setter. Most interest here is probably in the two long answers, but there’s plenty to talk about elsewhere.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26228
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
I thought that this Giovanni puzzle was on the hard side with two answers (25a and 24d) that I’d never heard of (although, to be fair, both were reachable from the checking letters and wordplay). However, I did have to look up the meanings of both, which is fine if you have reference books and Google handy, but not so fine if you’re trying to solve the puzzle on the move. What do you think? – as always we’d love to hear your views.
For those who need to see an answer or two, they are here between the curly brackets under the relevant clue – just select the space between the brackets to reveal.
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Rufus hits 1,000!
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On Bank Holiday Monday Roger “Rufus” Squires has his 1000th puzzle published in the Daily Telegraph. To mark the occasion there is an article about him on page 29 of today’s paper. If you can’t get the paper, you can read the article here, just click the picture of Roger:
Congratulations Rufus – and a thousand thank yous for mentioning Big Dave’s Crossword Blog in the article!
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