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”
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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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26223
A full review by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Although there are a number of weakish clues, this prize puzzle is not too bad.
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Toughie No 345 by Giovanni
Enjoyable Stuff
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Apologies for the lateness, a variety of reasons, I’m afraid.
A Curate’s Egg of a puzzle today with a fair smattering of new from our Friday Favourite. There were some clues I liked, but one or two that I thought not up his usual high standard. I’m not keen on the grid, as there’s only one way into each corner.
As usual, you can have your say after the blog, and you can mark the puzzle using our star system.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26227
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
A much better puzzle today from one of Thursday’s mystery setters. I almost feel deprived as there is nothing much to complain about!
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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