Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31218
Hints and tips by Smylers
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★★
Good morning, and welcome to Monday’s crossword. I think most will find this easier than the past couple of Mondays’. I actually finished this quickly, and those who rate difficulty purely on time may categorize this as just ★. But after my first pass there were still left many gaps in the grid, and a few of the clues have quite involved wordplay, so I think this is less suitable for a complete beginner than the puzzles I rate as ★, and ★★ it is.
Spouse and I are just back from a long weekend away to celebrate my birthday, which was a square number this year. See these pictues to work out where we went:
Continue reading “DT 31218”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31217 (Hints)
The Saturday Crossword Club
(hosted by crypticsue)
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
Continue reading “DT 31217 (Hints)”
Toughie No 3672 by Elgar
Hints and Tips by crypticsue
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment *****
Exactly what you expect from Elgar’s fortnightly visit to the middle of the paper. As clearly indicated by the clue to 21d, the Across solutions are all hiding items which a 15d might catch
Continue reading “Toughie 3672”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31211
A full review by Rahmat Ali
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
This puzzle was published on 11th April 2026
BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment *****
Greetings from Kolkata. A pretty straightforward Saturday puzzle from Twmbarlwm that I enjoyed solving and thereafter writing a review of the same for your kind perusal and significant feedback. Continue reading “DT 31211 (Full Review)”
Toughie No 3671 by Silvanus
Hints and tips by ALP
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Toughie difficulty */** – Enjoyment ***/****
Not too tricky and typically fair. I suspect 25a, for one, would have taken longer to unpick without crossers but – with them – it flew in. So … pretty gentle for a Thursday, I’d say. All yours.
Continue reading “Toughie 3671”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31215
Hints and Tips by Gazza
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** Enjoyment ****
Thanks to today’s setter (I’ll leave you to guess his or her identity) for an enjoyable puzzle pitched at just the right level for a Thursday.
Continue reading “DT 31215”
Toughie No 3670 by Weatherman
Hints and Tips by crypticsue
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty ***/**** – Enjoyment ***
Continue reading “Toughie 3670”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31214
Hints and Tips by Deansleigh
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty **/*** Enjoyment ****
Good morning everyone, and welcome to the midweek back-pager blog. I found today’s puzzle to have just the right level of difficulty for a Wednesday workout, and the perfect antidote to a miserable morning here on the South Coast of England. There were a couple of words that were new to me, and a reasonable amount of general knowledge is required, but but everything is fairly clued. I had ticks all over the page, but amongst my favourites are 1a, 24a, 1d, 8d, 16d and 18d, with first prize going to the stranded passenger in 17a. Many thanks to our setter.
Continue reading “DT 31214”
Toughie No 3669 by Shabbo
Hints and tips by Whybird
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment ****
Greetings! This week your Itinerant Blogger finds himself in a cottage on the Eaton Manor estate close to Church Stretton – views of Wenlock Edge (complete with Brown Hares on the slopes) to one side, and Long Mynd across the valley. Blackcaps and Nuthatches singing in the garden (and the latter also bizarrely from top of the tower of St Edith’s Church), red kites over the valley. It’s a tough assignment, but someone’s got to do it…
We have another high-quality puzzle from Shabbo to start our Toughie Week. I had just enough of a battle with a few of the clues to take this into Gentle Toughie Territory. Even with some of the gentler clues, I found I had to force myself to break the clues down into their elements and not get distracted by the surfaces. Like Django, but usually more concisely, Shabbo has a knack of leading me down the garden path! My favourites today were the Operatic Repairmen in 22a, the distracting surface in 2d and the narrative anagram in 14d. Thank you, Shabbo, for the entertainment.
Please let us know how you fared and what you thought of the puzzle.
Continue reading “Toughie 3669”