Toughie No 562 by Elgar
Be scared! Be very very scared!
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment *****
It’s that day of the month, when ladders are left alone and black cats are encouraged to go walking, and we have a cracking themed puzzle from Elgar to celebrate the day and its number.
Lots of amusing clues and presumably the Telegraph lawyers felt comfortable with 10 across 1 down (the numbering on the web print is wrong, by the way). I prefer Hammer Films to the modern gory trend of horror films so had to Google a couple of the answers to check them out. And any excuse to play one of my favourite singers’ version of a certain song is fine by me! Thanks to Elgar for one of his best-ever Toughies, although I suspect solvers abroad may not agree with me.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26551
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
We have a typical Giovanni today – a couple of religious references, a couple of new words (for me, anyway) but all impeccably clued. Let us know what you thought of it in a comment.
If you want to see an answer drag your cursor through the space between the curly brackets under the relevant clue.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26546
A full review by Crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***/**** – Enjoyment ***
Quite a few of us found this week’s prize puzzle from Cephas slightly more tricky than usual. The obvious ones went in straight away and some of the stragglers took a while for the penny to drop, but in the end the whole thing was solved in my usual time. Thanks to Cephas for the enjoyable challenge.
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Toughie No 561 by Kcit
Hints and tips by Bufo
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Another gentle puzzle from Kcit which should not have caused many problems. The US side in 7 down is possibly the only obscure thing in the puzzle.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26550
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
Judging by the early recorded times on Telegraph Puzzles (that is those times entered before the cheats have come along) it seems that several people found this puzzle difficult, so I have opted for three stars rather than two (that probably won’t be enough for some!). Although I had no difficulties in solving, I thought that several of the constructs were bordering on unfair.
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Toughie No 560 by Petitjean
Norwegian Blue
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
When I first read through the clues to this puzzle I thought that it was going to cause me a lot of problems, but in fact I managed to progress fairly steadily through it, helped by a couple of guesses at answers based on the definition and checking letters, which I then had to justify retrospectively from the wordplay. I have a couple of niggles but on the whole I enjoyed it.
Let us know what you thought in a comment and please take the time to register how much you liked it by clicking on one of the stars below.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26549
Hints and tips by pommers
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
Hello from the Vega Baja on a beautiful sunny morning. At least the weather here has resumed normal service over the last few days!
Maybe it’s just me but I think Jay has raised the bar a little on this one and based on my solving time I’ve had to give it 4* for difficulty. (I really must stop staying up late to solve the crossword. It doesn’t come online until 0100CEST and my brain isn’t really in gear at that time of the morning! )
A nice mix of clues with a couple of obscure words and phrases to get you thinking.
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Toughie No 559 by Messinae
Warpaint!
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
This and some other recent Messinae Toughies have been considerably tougher than his earlier puzzles. The enjoyment level was let down by some pretty awful surface readings – I leave you to work out to which clues I am referring!.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26548
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
We have an unknown setter today (but a different one from last week, unless I’m very much mistaken). I thought that this was enjoyable and just about the right level of difficulty for the back-page puzzle – let us know what you thought in a comment.
To reveal an answer highlight the space between the brackets under the clue.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26547
Hints and tips by Libellule
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
I thought this was straight forward stuff from Rufus today, but not quite up to his usual high standard. Some of the clues today seemed to be struggling to be cryptic. Overall, it was still a pleasant solve though.
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