Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31163 (Hints)
The Saturday Crossword Club
(hosted by crypticsue)
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Tag: Daily Telegraph
Toughie 3636
Toughie No 3636 by Osmosis
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
A typical Osmosis offering containing lots of clever wordplay which I enjoyed. Getting 6d and all the 3-letter answers early gave me a good start. 23a took me longest to parse.
Continue reading “Toughie 3636”
DT 31162
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31162
Hints and tips by Mr K
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BD Rating - Difficulty *** - Enjoyment ****
Hello, everyone, and welcome to a most excellent Friday crossword. Lots of smiles in this one. Continue reading "DT 31162"
DT 31157 (Full Review)
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31157
A full review by Rahmat Ali
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This puzzle was published on 7th February 2026
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *****
Greetings from Kolkata. A full-of-fun and excellent lovely Saturday puzzle from NYDK that I enjoyed solving and subsequently writing a review of the same for your kind perusal and valuable feedback. Continue reading “DT 31157 (Full Review)”
Toughie 3635
Toughie No 3635 by Dharma
Hints and tips by ALP
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BD Rating – Toughie difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Typically sharp but fair definitions from Dharma with some knotty wordplay. For some reason, I found this slightly harder to break into than usual but once the top fell, it was a brisk-ish solve. All yours.
DT 31161
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31161
Hints and Tips by Senf
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BD Rating – Difficulty 2.5* – Enjoyment 4.5*
A very good Thursday morning from Winnipeg where with rising day time temperatures but below zero overnight temperatures we are getting into freeze-thaw cycles.
For me, etc© (I have to say that for Terence), the Master of Brevity has given us a very enjoyable puzzle. The usual one word clues and answers in the Quickie, but only the sweetheart appearing in the back pager with an average of 5.27 words per clue. I hope you have your Crimson Tomes at hand!
Remember that Reading the Hints before commenting can be beneficial!
Toughie 3634
Toughie No 3634 by Weatherman
Hints and Tips by crypticsue
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BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty ***/**** – Enjoyment ***
DT 31160
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31160
Hints and Tips by Deansleigh
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** Enjoyment ****
Good morning everyone, and welcome to the Wednesday blog. I found today’s puzzle to be quite tricky, but that may have been because I was still half asleep when I started solving it! A couple of the answers were new to me, and several clues took me a while to parse, pushing my solving time into 3* territory. There were plenty of concise and elegant clues and I found it difficult to pick a winner. I particularly liked the podgy husband in 27a, the binge session in 1d and the tipsy Democrat in 16d, but my favourite today is the naked Beatle in 13a. Many thanks to today’s setter. Continue reading “DT 31160”
Toughie 3633
Toughie No 3633 by Shabbo
Hints and tips by Whybird
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *****
Warm wishes from a damp, grey Wirral!
We have a wonderful puzzle from Shabbo today – Floughie it ain’t, but equally there is no obscure GK or archaic vocabulary required. With the possible exception of 26a, the toughness arises mainly from the very cleverly constructed clues, all with very smooth surfaces. Many of them are set up so they look like they should be solved one way, which turns out to be a dead end, but then turns out to be “clearly” something entirely different. And all done with a remarkable economy of words, too.
I struggled to get going, eventually getting a foothold with 23a, and then worked from SE to NW as the respective pennies went clunk. 1a gets my top spot today, as well as being my last one in, but there are too many other very good clues to list – smiles all over the age today.
Thank you, Shabbo, for an excellent challenge.
Please let us know how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
I have a short break from the Blog for the next couple of weeks whilst I have a tour around India trying to see, but avoid being eaten and/or trampled by, various large felines, canines, reptiles and herbivores. You will have the pleasure of Gazza on a Tuesday for the rest of the month, so thanks to him for stepping into the breach.
DT 31159
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31159
Hints and tips by Huntsman
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BD Rating – Difficulty * Enjoyment ***
Well it’s not raining yet here in Harpenden but it’s on the way & none too warm out there either.
Next week I’ll leave you in ALP’s expert hands as I’m off to 17d in Shabbo’s excellent Toughie to see if I can remember how to play golf & hopefully catch a bit of sunshine in the process. I’m sure his music choices will be more eclectic than mine.
No reverse anagrams to trip me up in today’s pretty gentle puzzle, which I’m sure is an Anthony Plumb production. As ever nicely clued throughout without for me quite hitting the heights of last week.
As usual there are an assortment of clips to enjoy or ignore.
In the hints below the definition element of each clue has been underlined, anagrams are CAPITALISED & the crossword technique “indicator words” are in brackets. The answers are concealed under the Click Here buttons. Please leave a comment below telling us what you thought & how you got on with the puzzle.