EV1731
Columns by Chalicea
Solution
Tag: Answers
Toughie 3631
Toughie No 3631 by Beam
Hints and tips by ALP
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BD Rating – Toughie difficulty * – Enjoyment ***/****
Standard Beam fare – a sweetheart, a queen and an imaginative, tight word count … but no lavatorial humour today. Who could he have been listening to?! Over to you.
DT 31155
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31155
Hints and Tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** Enjoyment ***
I don’t think that there’s much to frighten the horses in this enjoyable puzzle. Thanks to our setter.
Continue reading “DT 31155”
Toughie 3630
Toughie No 3630 by Donnybrook
Hints and Tips by crypticsue
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BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
DT 31154
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31154
Hints and Tips by Deansleigh
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** Enjoyment *****
Good morning from a chilly but sunny south Hampshire. Today we have another excellent back-pager, with so many fine clues it was hard to choose a favourite. I especially liked 1a, 9a, 19a, 2d and 3d, but topping the podium for me today is the tipsy clergyman in 8d. Many thanks to today’s setter. Continue reading “DT 31154”
Sunday Toughie 209 (Review)
Sunday Toughie No 209 by Samuel
Review by Sloop John Bee
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This puzzle was published on the 25th of January 2026
ST 3353 (Full Review)
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 3353
A full review by Rahmat Ali
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This puzzle was published on 25th January 2026
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Kolkata. A superb and lovely puzzle from Dada this Sunday that I enjoyed solving and thereafter writing a full review of the same for your kind perusal and valuable feedback. Continue reading “ST 3353 (Full Review)”
Toughie 3629
Toughie No 3629 by Dada
Hints and tips by Whybird
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Hello and welcome to another Toughie week. Could someone kindly go out and switch the Wirral’s daylight on, please? It still feels like nighttime, although I know it isn’t, thanks to a disturbed night courtesy of Lord Alfie-du-Sniffs who dragged me from my slumbers twice for access to the garden… I should take that as a positive, but I’d much rather he hadn’t helped himself to whatever dubious substances he found whilst fossicking around Birkenhead Park yesterday!
We have something of a challenging puzzle from Dada today – definitely no Floughie for me. My heart sank when I saw the grid – I always find the proliferation of unchecked initial letters to be a challenge. Then I thought we might be on for an easy-to-spot Nina that may have helped, but, alas, no such luck – at least not as far as I can see! The solve wasn’t helped by getting my first one in (9a) wrong – being too clever for my own good. There are some quite tough nuts to crack amongst a smattering of “Gimmes”, and to my taste there are too many onomatopoeic-like terms employed. But there are also some gems, and some “usual suspects” with lesser-spotted – but perfectly fair – meanings to get the cogs whirring. Rosettes from me today for 15a (my last one in), 20a and 4d, but my overall prize goes to 2d.
Thanks to Dada for unlocking the mental machinery, and for the first time in a while providing me with an obvious bird illustration!
Please let us know how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle
DT 31152
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31152
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Ottawa, where we are about to get a respite from a spell of bitterly cold weather (overnight lows below -20C and daytime highs below -12C). This week daytime temperatures will reach a more comfortable -5C. Our annual three week long Winterlude Festival has begun and the conditions are the best they have been in years. You can catch a glimpse of the preparations for the festivities in this video.
I found this to be a puzzle where the answers needed to be slowly teased out as the grid filled. In the end, I felt I had made harder work of it than it should have required. Nevertheless, it was certainly far from an unpleasant experience (and would have been even more enjoyable had I not been working under blogging pressure).
As the only way to halt my losing streak of setter predictions seems to be to stop predicting, I will not venture a guess this time.
In the hints below, underlining identifies precise definitions and cryptic definitions, FODDER is capitalized, and indicators are italicized. The answers will be revealed by clicking on the ANSWER buttons.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought of the puzzle.
Toughie 3628
Toughie No 3628 by Karla
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Thanks to Karla for an entertaining and not too tricky puzzle.
I am hoping to see many of you at Bridge House tomorrow.
Continue reading “Toughie 3628”