Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26275
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
I have nearly worn out the blue highlighter today – there were so many excellent clues in this puzzle. Once again we don’t know the name of the setter, but we have not had a puzzle as good as this one on a Thursday since Jay relinquished the slot at the start of the year.
The clue at 8 down is one of the best I have seen in a long time. I hope the setter owns up to this one.
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Toughie No 376 by Excalibur
Robust bus expelled (3)
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *
Disjointed, lacking structure and providing very little entertainment. But enough of the England football team, what of today’s Toughie? Well, pretty much the same really. I did think at one time that Excalibur’s puzzles were improving a bit after some of the very poor ones from last year, but it’s difficult to find much positive to say about this one (well, one thing, I did quite like 26a). Some of the surface readings (e.g. 19a, 15d and 25d) are gibberish, and there was nothing that made me smile, let alone laugh.
You may of course have a totally different view, and, whether you do or not, we’d love to get a comment from you.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26274
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
I can’t think of much to say about this puzzle. Perhaps my mind is on other events today!
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Toughie No 375 by Busman
Busman steps up a gear!
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Usually I find Busman’s puzzles to be on the easy side and not particularly enjoyable. Although this one is not difficult, apart from the Greek abbot and the Spanish composer, there were some excellent clues. The biggest smiles came from 1 across and 11 across, with 15 down not far behind.
I rounded the difficulty up to 3 stars, mainly because of the aforementioned foreigners.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26273
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ****– Enjoyment ****
We have a challenging and very entertaining puzzle today from Ray T with some very amusing clues. It’s well worth persevering with, but, if you want something a bit easier Prolixic informs me that today’s Toughie is not as difficult. Let us know what you think of this one, and how you think it compares with the Toughie.
If you want to see the answers, they’re hidden between the curly brackets under the relevant clues. Highlight the space between the brackets to reveal.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26272
Hints and tips by Libellule
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BD Rating – Difficulty **– Enjoyment ***
First of all I would like to thank Dr. BlueDragon for his appreciation of the blog on DNUK. Now having done that, we can turn our thoughts to Monday’s crossword by Rufus. Although I did enjoy this, there are some fun cryptic defintions, I did at times feel as if I was dipping into a box of old chestnuts.
If you are still struggling with the answer after reading the hint, just highlight the space between the curly brackets.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26271- Hints
Big Dave’s Saturday Crossword Club
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A few hints just to get you started – more than usual this week as some of the wordplay is a bit tricky.
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.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them. A full review of this puzzle will be published on Thursday, 24th June.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2540
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
More Sunday class. As Brian Greer called me an “arch-roaster of chestnuts” or similar a few weeks ago, I suspect he may well have done this before without me noticing properly, but there is very little stale old cryptic xwd material in this puzzle – apart from some one-letter abbreviations like fifty=>L, which are almost impossible to avoid completely, there are just two bits of what I’d think of as “chestnut content”: four=>IV (25A), leg=>ON (4D).
Next Friday’s report will be a bit different. Gnomethang and I will both record our thought processes as accurately as we can while solving next Sunday’s puzzle (2541), and the blog will be a report showing our progress in parallel. The idea is to show you a bit of how we get from the clue to the answer – the analysis you usually get explaining the answer is useful (and all you can be sure of being able to write after the event) but not quite the same. It will also show you that there are many ways to skin the solving rabbit – there will be clues that one of us sees easily and the other misses completely on first look – both ways, I hope.
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Toughie No 374 by Notabilis
Anax can fall
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
I really enjoyed this, but I also found it very difficult – not that I had to look anything up beyond confirming a couple of answers I’d written in. But, after solving, it turns out a couple of my partners in solving crime had far less trouble than me.
Notabilis has been one of my favourite setters for a long time and, as ever, what shines through in this puzzle (beyond his usual inventiveness) is conciseness, clarity and fairness. The enjoyment rating is only at 4 stars, though; for me the clues were pretty much faultless – just one very tiny grumble – but it just needed a genuine WOW moment to tip it into 5-star territory.
My favourites clues are shown in blue text, but these are the pick of a very high quality bunch.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26270
Hints and tips by Gnomethang
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Morning All!. I really enjoyed solving this puzzle. It was one of those that looked quite daunting on the first read through but with time and a bit of Crypticsue’s ‘cogitation’ each clue unlocked itself. As one comes to expect from Giovanni there are some lovely surface readings and images therein and a few diverting clues that require the crossword equivalent of a gentle a tap with a taffy hammer before they can be broken down.
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 and as ever, if you still feel the need, you can get the answers by dragging your cursor between the curly brackets.
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