Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25909
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
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Tag: Daily Telegraph
Toughie No 132
Toughie No 132 by Shamus
A Potpourri of a Puzzle
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
This puzzle draws on a wide variety of words – two cities, a Scottish town, a Shetland fire festival, food and drink, a lake, an American President and a type of railway. All of the proper nouns are well-known apart from the fire festival, but I enjoyed reading about it.
Today is the big day when I am entitled to collect my pension, so it is a bit hectic here at the moment! The hints and tips may take a litle while to complete, but I will get them done.
DT Cryptic No 25908
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25908
Today’s hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
This is another fine Tuesday crossword, made up entirely of single-word answers. It contains some excellent and amusing clues and a number of clever attempts at misdirection. For those readers who have not read BigDave’s excellent FAQs, note that the white space between the curly brackets actually contains the answer – double-click on it and all will be revealed!
DT Cryptic No 25907
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25907
Hints and tips by Tilsit
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings to everyone from my local hospital. Unfortunately I was readmitted in the early hours of Saturday morning and am likely to be here for a few days yet. Rather than overload Big Dave with more work, I thought I’d try a slightly different approach.
I am a bit of a night-owl at the best of times, so I thought I would sign in to the Telegraph website, Clued Up, just after midnight, solve the puzzle on line and make notes, as I have no access to a printer. Three different browsers and 40 minutes later, I finally managed to get the crossword to load using Safari web browser.
A fairly enjoyable puzzle with a couple of superbly clever clues, but I also have one reservation in that I think you could technically make a case for either spelling of the word required at 5ac. As well as the usual smattering of clever cryptic definitions, I really liked 26 across as a nice neat clue, 10 across likewise. On the other hand I couldn’t see anything other than a single definition at 3 down and I’m not sure about 16 across, I have offered my interpretation below.
Thanks to our Monday Maestro for his usual challenge and I hope to see you all later in the week. Thanks to Big Dave for his assistance with posting this.
DT Cryptic No 25906 – Hints
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25906 – Hints
Selected hints by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on St George’s Day – Thursday, 23rd April.
Toughie No 131
Toughie No 131 by Citrus
A sweet puzzle from Citrus!
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
A very enjoyable puzzle that took longer to complete than I thought it should, but then hindsight is always 20/20 vision!
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DT Cryptic No 25905
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25905
Hints and tips by Libellule
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Another generally enjoyable Friday puzzle, but a bit more complicated today, than it has been for a while.
DT Cryptic No 25900 – Review
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25900 – Review
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
I found this a bit easier than last week’s, but based on recent goes at some old DT puzzles, there may be even easier ones out there (or I’m gaining from experience), so not worthy of one-star difficulty. The grid is mostly very sound, but spoiled a bit by some under-checking at the edges. On the placenames that the Saturday setter seems fond of, I don’t mind having them as answers, but would prefer not to have quite such difficult geographical wordplay as used today. I have a vague notion that I’ve seen a more approachable {town+town = town} clue before, but I can’t think of the places – maybe Sometown+Bury or Sometown+Chester?
Continue reading “DT Cryptic No 25900 – Review”
Toughie No 130
Toughie No 130 by MynoT
Hints and tips by Tilsit
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
Quite a thought-provoking and entertaining puzzle today from a setter known for producing some very challenging and difficult puzzles – last Sunday’s Enigmatic Variations puzzle of his is one that is certainly worth solving, if you have the time and patience. I found this a reasonable challenge with several new words and phrases, but it did contain another appearance of the dreaded indirect anagram (see the blog for Toughie 126!). I thought a couple of clues over-egged the pudding and I am not at all keen on one definition.
DT Cryptic No 25904
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25904
Today’s hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
If yesterday’s puzzle required a frantic trawl through a medical ward, then today’s offers a period of convalescence with a gentle stroll through some fairly straightforward clues with no obscure words in sight.