Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25954 – Hints
Selected hints by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
A good puzzle which, for me, was spoilt by the return of the dreaded place names. Just to make things worse, three of the four are interlinked. As I have previously remarked, if I want a General Knowledge crossword I will do the Telegraph’s excellent Giant GK puzzle. To me it’s a lazy way of filling the grid, and I always have more respect for setters that avoid them.
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 Thursday, 18th June.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2487 – Review
A full analysis by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
A bit harder than in recent weeks, but an excellent puzzle. Continue reading “ST 2487 – Review”
Toughie No 163 by Elgar
The Rolls Royce of Toughies!
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment *****
How I look forward to alternate Fridays! It took me quite a while to get into the CluedUp site this morning, but it was well worth the wait. The hardest thing about Elgar’s puzzles is not finding the answers (which is difficult at the best of times) but getting a full resolution of the wordplay.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25953
Hints and tips by Libellule
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Up nice and early this morning to try and get this review done before doing some “real” work and what do we find, a CluedUp site that’s up and down like a yoyo, and even when it seems to be up you can’t even log in. How complicated is it to run a web site like this? Anyway enough of the complaints about CluedUp, lets concentrate on the crossword. This was another entertaining Friday crossword. Not too difficult, but not too easy either and as always the crossword is characterised by the carefully crafted clues.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25948 – Review
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
A pretty sound puzzle of moderate difficulty. No grid gripes, no geography, no arbitary people. Rejoice! Well, there are some gripes below but it feels like fewer than usual.
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Toughie No 162 by Osmosis
Hints and tips by Tilsit
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
A fairly ferocious puzzle from Osmosis today and one that pushed me to my solving limits. Most of the clues have excellent surface reading and it is easy to see that the puzzle has been carefully put together. All very clever cluing which took some time and effort to untangle. This is turning out to be a splendid week for the Toughie puzzles.
I’ve tried to explain clues as best as I can, and would welcome youir comments. As usual, the blank bit between the curly brackets can be highlighted to reveal the answer.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25952
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
After the discussions of the past few days on whether a puzzle is easy or difficult it is with some trepidation that I suggest that this is one of the easier daily puzzles. This is, however, only a personal opinion, and as the quizmaster used to say “the questions are only easy if you know the answer”.
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Toughie No 161 by Messinae
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
This is a good solid Toughie with some very entertaining clues and nothing too obscure. I enjoyed it a lot.
For newcomers to the site can I point out that the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets. If you need to see an answer just select the white space inside the brackets.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25951
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Rather like last Wednesday’s puzzle, this one is not too difficult but has some well-constructed clues. This could be a good one for all you newbies out there (and you too BigBoab!).
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Toughie No 160 by Notabilis
An elegant Toughie that shows how it should be done
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
There are a number of excellent Toughie setters and Notabilis, aka Kea and Nestor, is certainly one. There is hardly a letter out of place, and this could be given as an example of how a crossword does not need obscure words, girls or boys names or exotic places to be a good puzzle.
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