Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26399
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
I don’t know who the setter is today – the puzzle has the feel of a refugee from the wasteland that was once Thursday’s province. I’ve noticed before that the first clue you solve sets the tone for the whole puzzle – today the first answer I put in was 1a and, as far as I was concerned, the puzzle never recovered. Am I being unfair? Or am I being unduly generous in giving it two stars for enjoyment? Let me know your views in a comment!
If you want to see an answer drag your cursor through the space between the brackets under the relevant clue.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26398
Hints and tips by Libellule
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Top quality stuff from the Monday Maestro. Lots of nice clues to choose as possible favourites, but 28a gets the vote from Gazza and I today.
If you cannot work out the answer from the hint, please highlight the space between the curly brackets.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26397 (Hints)
Big Dave’s Saturday Crossword Club
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As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.
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Toughie No 458 by Elgar
Expert Logophile Generates Amazing Riddles
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
Greetings from my recliner in the Calder Valley! Surprisingly, and contrary to most people’s expectations, I was sent home after five days! I am so grateful to everyone at Huddersfield Hospital for their care, and especially the fantastic Mr Ainslie, my surgeon, who has been simply amazing. Thank you also, to everyone from the blog for the kind wishes and thoughts.
On to today’s gem from Elgar. As usual, we are treated to a mixture of the clever and witty. For those daunted by Elgar there are a couple of nice ways to get into the puzzle today. Lots of musical references in today’s clues, which nicely mislead, and there are the usual wickedly humorous clues, such as 4 down and 26 across (methinks BD will like this!). As well as these, other favourite clues include 2down and the delicious 14 down.
The answers are hidden between the squiggly graphics written with Big Dave’s special invisible ink made from the finest Malvern Onion harvest. To reveal them, highlight the space with your mouse.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26396
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Those who actually buy the paper are probably fed up with hearing moans about CluedUp (or whatever it’s called now) but here goes again. Their usual way of signalling that an answer extends over more than one clue is not very good (as in 1a yesterday) but at least there’s usually some indication. Today 1a appears to require just a straight 9-letter answer – I spent ages looking at in vain, left it, only to find at 25a that a second word is required.
This is a typical Giovanni puzzle. Let us know what you thought of it in a comment!
The answers, if you find the hints inadequate, are hidden between the brackets under the clues – just highlight the space between the brackets to reveal.
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Toughie No 457 by Kcit
Hints and tips by Bufo
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
I found this far more difficult than I’ve come to expect from Kcit. To some extent this was a consequence of the grid in which there are less checked letters than usual and a lot of first letters that are unchecked. I struggled with the last few answers and eventually had to “cheat” to get 17 down. There appears to be an error in 15 across.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26391
A full review by Crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Once again, Cephas provided us with a most enjoyable crossword for a fine Saturday morning – a very nice mix of clues – a couple of which caused confusion for some on the day – but I thoroughly enjoyed both the solving and the subsequent analysis for this review.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26395
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Looks like today’s puzzle is by one of our mystery setters. It was nice to see such an open grid – the Telegraph could do with having many more like this.
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Toughie No 456 by Micawber
The Return of the Master
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *****
I think that I’m quite lucky to review the Wednesday Toughies. This is the second Wednesday appearance in a few weeks of my favourite Toughie setter, Micawber. He’s a master of elegant, witty clues and he can make his puzzles challenging without having to resort to very obscure words. I loved it.
Let us know your opinion in a comment, and please remember to click on one of the stars below (one if you hated it, five if you thought it was brilliant or a number between the two).
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26394
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
If you enjoy charades, you’ll love this puzzle. At least 17 of the 28 clues involve this type of clue. I must say that it was far more enjoyable to solve than it was to create hints for. After all, there are only so many ways to describe a charade.
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