Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26050
After the Lord Mayor’s Show…….
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment **
Last week we were treated to a hugely enjoyable puzzle which contained references to that well-known character Big Dave. This week we came back down to earth with a bump and while we don’t talk about solving times as part of the blog, let’s just say that cooking two hard-boiled eggs might have taken me longer.
Most of the Saturday papers tend to reserve their toughest or most elegant puzzles for a Saturday, but the Telegraph I think tends the other way, with a friendly none-too-taxing challenge, which generates lots of entries for the prize. In that respect, it ticks all the boxes. However, I prefer a puzzle that does offer a bit of a challenge. The grid was pretty awful as well, with lots of “double unches” (double unchecked letters) and a lot of four letter words which are clued rather uninspiringly. Compare with the Wednesday puzzle where the four-letter answers were clued with a bit of imagination and care.
The other slight issue was that the clue at 10 across was clued differently on line than in the paper. Luckily the answers were the same, otherwise there might have been a bigger problem.
Here are the clue explanations:-