Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31140
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Ottawa, where we are currently experiencing fairly typical winter weather (daytime highs of -5C) but a cold snap is forecast for next weekend when the high temperature is slated to be -20C (BRRR!) – although Senf will probably tell me that’s warm.
Again this week we have a fairly gentle introductory puzzle from X-Type (presumably).
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.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31139 (Hints)
The Saturday Crossword Club (hosted by crypticsue)
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Toughie No 3620 by Sparks
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Sparks has provided today’s enjoyable Toughie. Thanks to him.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31138
Hints and Tips by crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** Enjoyment ***
Mr K is traveling at the moment and unable to blog so at very short notice I’ve set up the clues and answers and underlined the definitions. I’ve no time to write the hints so feel free to contribute hints for individual clues – I’ll incorporate good ones in the blog later.
Update: As Gazza is also blogging the Toughie, I have stepped in to provide some hurried hints for the backpager. I’m sure I’ve made lots of mistakes but if you point them out, please tell us what you thought of the crossword at the same time.
Difficult to tell at the speed at which I was solving, parsing and typing, but it did seem to be that there were a lot of repeated clue devices throughout
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31133
A full review by Rahmat Ali
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This puzzle was published on 10th January 2026
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Kolkata. A challenging yet entertaining 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 31133 (Full Review)”
Toughie No 3619 by Kcit
Hints and tips by ALP
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BD Rating – Toughie difficulty * – Parsing 28a ***** – Enjoyment ***
Fairly straightforward Lego from Kcit today, bar one spot of parsing (28a). I had to dredge up some A-level vocab for 1a and 6d’s “amount of work” but the definitions largely jumped out. All told, a pretty brisk solve. Pondering over the mechanics of 28a easily took as long (for me, anyroad) as the entire puzzle! All yours.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31137
Hints and Tips by Senf
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
A very good Thursday morning from Winnipeg. No doubt that the Master of Brevity is today’s setter, but not the first leg of a Dream Team Thursday, Kcit is on Toughie duty, just a sprinkling of the usual indicators between this puzzle and the Quickie are in evidence. I haven’t calculated average words per clue – I am assuming it is 5 ± a decimal point or two.
For me, etc© (I have to say that for Terence), an enjoyable puzzle which caused several pauses for thought for solving and parsing. I hope you have your Crimson Tomes at hand!
Remember that Reading the Hints before commenting can be beneficial!
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Toughie No 3618 by Light
Hints and Tips by crypticsue
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BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty */** – Enjoyment *****
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31136
Hints and Tips by Deansleigh
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BD Rating – Difficulty * Enjoyment ***
Good morning from Hampshire, where the winter sun has made a welcome appearance after yesterday’s relentless rain. I found this puzzle to be fairly gentle for a midweek back-pager, and it was my quickest solve of the week so far. 7d and 13d both made it onto my podium today, but my favourite has to be the superb 12a. Many thanks to today’s setter.
In the hints below the definition element of each clue has been underlined, anagrams are CAPITALISED and indicator words (e.g. anagram indicators) are in brackets. The answers are concealed under the Click Here buttons.
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Toughie No 3617 by Hudson
Hints and tips by Whybird
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment *****
Welcome to the Toughie week, and what a way to start it! Hudson has given us a treat. Given some of the pieces of general knowledge I had to check up, I would not have described this as a Floughie, but I found I had completed it in Floughie time. In fact, my only criticism is that it was all over too soon – another 15 or 20 clues at this standard would have been very welcome indeed. There are some great surfaces, with some sneakiness and some clever crypticness, all set out in concise terms. What’s not to love? I’ve selected 2d, 11a, 15d and 19a for my Roll of Honour, but there are so many to choose from, it might have been easier to pick the few that were merely “good”. Thank you, Hudson, for a cracking puzzle, although 2d has caused some angst with having to avoid it in the hints!
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