Toughie No 416 by Firefly
Just a Thong at Twilight
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
There’s a theme to today’s puzzle by Firefly and the sooner you get 10a the sooner it becomes apparent. All, except one, references to 10 in the other clues are to variations on the meaning of 10a. I really enjoyed solving it, and even if I hadn’t enjoyed it quite so much, I’d still have given it 4* for entertainment just for the joy of 1a. In terms of difficulty I don’t think that it’s quite as hard as yesterday’s, but I still found it a tough challenge and at one stage I had three-quarters of the grid filled in with the bottom right-hand quadrant still totally blank.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26334
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty **/*** – Enjoyment ***
Standard Telegraph crossword, yet again, from Jay.
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Toughie No 415 by MynoT
As I was going to Strawberry Fair!
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
I was wondering what theme MynoT was going to use next, and early clues led me to think it might be astronomy. It turned out to be something totally different!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26333
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
I used to know where I was on Tuesdays; we had puzzles from Shamus and Ray T on alternate weeks. Then last week the schedule went berserk – not only did we have Ray T two weeks in a row, but his trademark (exclusively single-word answers) was jettisoned. So I approached this morning’s puzzle with some trepidation as to who the setter would be. Well, I’m pretty sure that it’s not by Ray T and I do think that it’s from Shamus (not least because of 5a). It only remains now for me to be proved totally wrong by a comment from the real setter!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26332
Hints and tips by Libellule
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
A very gentle start to the week. I don’t expect many of you to make use of the blog today!
If you really cannot work out the answer form the hint, highlight the space between the curly brackets.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26331 (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.
Don’t forget that you can give your assessment of the puzzle. Five stars if you thought it was great, one if you hated it, four, three or two if it was somewhere in between.
A full review of this puzzle will be published on Thursday, 2nd September.
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Toughie No 414 by Myops
Like swallowing a dictionary!
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
Fitting in the answers was a struggle for many of the clues. Explaining the wordplay is even harder. Myops is one of a handful of setters worthy of the Friday Toughie slot (along with Elgar, Notabilis, Osmosis and Micawber).
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2550
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment *****
A very easy puzzle for me this one. Big Dave discourages bragging about solving times, so I’ll just say that in minutes and seconds this was exactly as quick for me as the Times crossword of 24th August, the quickest for me in several months if not a year or more. So in the same spirit as Craig Revel Horwood of Strictly Come Dancing, who sees no point in having a board with a 1 on it if he’s never going to use it, this gets one star for difficulty. I was going to knock off an enjoyment star on the basis that nothing this easy can be worth 5, but changed my mind when I got to 3D.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26330
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
We have a typical Giovanni puzzle today, good clueing, a few smiles and several religious references. There’s one clue (22d) where I’m not at all sure of how it works, so any assistance on that one would be gratefully received. Whether you have any ideas on that one or not, we’d like to hear your views in a comment.
To reveal an answer just drag your cursor through the space between the brackets under the relevant clue.
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Toughie No 413 by Shamus
Hints and tips by Bufo
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
I’m fairly neutral about this one. It was a competent enough puzzle and the clues were perfectly fair. But there was nothing about it that got me excited.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought. You can also add your assessment by selecting from one to five stars at the bottom of the post.
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