Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26015
Hints and Tips by Tilsit
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Time for another battle with the Monday Maestro. I have a feeling that those who find him to be extremely easy might have had a surprise today. There were one or two clues that caused me to scratch the old noggin and raise a few sparks. Overall quite a nice balance of clues, where some weeks we seem to have a preponderance of one type or another.
As usual, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts and welcome your contributions. A couple of things to remember, first time posters take a little longer to appear purely as they are vetted just to make sure they are not spammers being a pain in the rectum. There’s also a star rating facilitiy at the end of the blog and you can click on that to show your rating the puzzle. It’s purely for fun.
Oh, and for those who haven’t seen this in today’s papers!
Continue reading “DT 26015”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2497 – Review
A full analysis by Big Dave
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Yet another winner from our Sunday Setter.
At the bottom of the post you will see an array of five stars – use these to 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.
Continue reading “ST 2497 – Review”
Toughie No 203 by MynoT
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Last time I reviewed a Toughie from MynoT I said it was “difficult in places, but overall very enjoyable” – this one is very much the same. Some of the difficulties are described below, and if you can help then please leave a comment.
Continue reading “Toughie 203”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26013
Hints and tips by Libellule
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
Beware of what you ask for. After last Friday’s gentle stroll, today’s crossword is certainly not a walk in the park. Today we have a much more difficult crossword, although that does not detract from its enjoyment. (Even if the grid is a bit cornery).
Please take some time to enjoy the excellent surface readings.
As usual feel free to leave your comments.
Continue reading “DT 26013”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26008 – Review
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
A puzzle of moderate difficulty and the usual Saturday mixed bag of clues …
Continue reading “DT 26008 – Review”
Toughie No 202 by Warbler
Look Before You Leap!
+ – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Today marks a first for yours truly! I actually agree with the current score given by solvers on Clued Up for the puzzle. It was a pleasant enough puzzle until I came to submit my entry and found I had three wrong answers. One was a typo because of the quirkiness of the entry system which frequently sends the cursor off at the wrong angle, but I also had two wrong answers; both of which were down to not reading the clue properly. Having suitably chastised myself, I entered the correct solutions and was done for another day.
One of those puzzles that would make a good daily challenge, but on the easy side for a Toughie. A couple of clever clues and one or two to make me smile. All in all a nice battle with an amiable setter.
This is the third time I have started this blog. I saved it to send to Big Dave but forgot that I had transferred it to my laptop and was saving the doc to an email, and of course it didn’t save.
Continue reading “Toughie 202”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26012
Hints and tips by Gazza
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
I found this puzzle very enjoyable with some excellent surface readings. Please let us know what you thought of it, via a comment, and cast a vote by clicking on one of the stars at the bottom.
As usual, the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets, so that you can just reveal an answer that you need, by selecting the white space, without accidentally seeing other answers.
Continue reading “DT 26012”
Toughie No 201 by Cephas
Wednesday’s Child is Full of Woe
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *
Maybe it is something to do with seeing that black cat chasing a magpie while I was walking under a ladder yesterday. For whatever reason I seem to have been unlucky with the Toughie today. We have a number of cryptic definitions, which, not to beat about the bush, are pretty woeful, and we have several clues where the word order has been manipulated to try to improve the surface reading.
Am I being unfair? Perhaps you loved it – please leave us a comment! And please record a vote for how much you enjoyed it by clicking on one of the stars at the bottom.
Continue reading “Toughie 201”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26011
Hints and tips by Big Dave
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
This is an easy puzzle, which should leave you plenty of time to tackle today’s Toughie from Cephas, our regular Saturday setter. This week there is no surfeit of cryptic definitions, but you do find yourself expecting that if it isn’t an anagram then it might be a hidden word!
You can add your assessment by selecting from one to five stars at the bottom of the post.
Continue reading “DT 26011”
Toughie No 200 by Citrus
Opportunity didn’t knock!
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
I was expecting something special from this Toughie, but what I got was a puzzle in which the difficulty only came from obscure words and a particularly tricky wordplay.
Continue reading “Toughie 200”
