Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 27161
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Ottawa where spring seems slow to arrive this year. One may even still see the odd isolated pile of snow in some well-sheltered locations.
This is a DNRT (Definitely Not Ray T) puzzle. I also found it to be a difficult puzzle to rate. To start with, the difficulty level of clues seems to range all over the map. I have set the difficulty at three stars, but some of the British terms may have caused me more difficulty than they will you. I also found it a bit tedious to review — especially the down clues where one encounters charade after charade after charade. I hadn’t particularly noticed this while solving the puzzle as I typically find myself tackling clues in a random order. I tried not to let this factor influence my rating, and gave it three stars for enjoyment as I felt that I had enjoyed the solving experience more than the blogging experience.