Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25979
Hints and tips by Tilsit
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from the Calder Valley. Quite a challenging and enjoyable puzzle from our Monday Maestro today. Not as easy as the past few weeks with a few clues to cause more than a little head scratching. Lots of good surface reading and a preponderance of double definition clues today.
The topic for debate today concerns the clue at 28 across. I often feel that crosswords are stuck in a sort of time warp of the late fifties/early sixties. Some setters try to write clues that reflect modern usage (and abusage) of phrases, but a few, and this runs from today’s setter through to the Araucarias of this world) sometimes use words or devices that are strictly of a period.
If you asked a younger person what a “cosh” was, would they know? To me, it’s a word that belongs with The Great Train Robbers and 1950’s Teddy Boys. I also accept that I may be wrong, and I’d like your thoughts. I don’t think the day is far off where the newer abbreviations, such as LOL and IMHO will start appearing as indicators as part of clues. What do you think? Let me know at the end. Newer posters please remember that your first posts has to be approved, to prevent spamming, but you’ll be on the board fairly quickly.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2491 – Review
A full analysis by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Not quite as good as last week’s, but still streets ahead of how they used to be.
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Toughie No 179 by Shamus
Shamus at his best!
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Breaking a run of Elgar and Excalibur on alternate Fridays, we have this excellent puzzle from Shamus. I liked the artistic flavour and really enjoyed this one.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25977
Hints and tips by Libellule
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Not too difficult, but not too easy either. A nice mixture of clues varying in complexity. A good crossword for polishing your skills and typical for a Friday.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25972 – Review
A full analysis by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
Peter Biddlecombe is taking a well-deserved break this week, but will be back next week.
Saturday puzzles recently have not deserved the accolade of prize puzzles, but this one was a lot better. I had a few minor grumbles,which are outlined in the review.
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Toughie No 178 by Messinae
Just Like That? Not a Lot!
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *** – (CluedUp Site Difficulty **************)
Very irritating today. Not the puzzle, but the blooming CluedUp website. I logged in to do the puzzle and finished it, and was chugging along writing the blog. Funnily enough at the time I thought that it didn’t feel like a Messinae puzzle. Visited this lovely site and then saw Gazza’s blog on the same puzzle! Checked in to Clued-Up again and got a different puzzle!
So we start again, a bit late! This was a really nice puzzle to solve (unlike his current fiendish Listener puzzle, which is a s*d!) and contains one of the best clues I have seen in a while. However I think there’s a problem with one of the other clues.
Off we go, let me have your thoughts below.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25976
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
When I solved this puzzle I was not overly impressed with it, but writing the review has made me appreciate some of the individual clues more, and I ended up quite liking it.
As usual the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets – just select the white space to reveal them.
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Toughie No 177 by Osmosis
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
Once again we have a challenging Toughie from Osmosis with some pretty complicated wordplay. With some of the clues I felt like I’d taken a piece of equipment apart and put it back together, only to find that I’d got a bit left over! An extraordinary number of the clues involve a reversal of some or all of the letters. I really enjoyed battling with this one.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 25975
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
I found this to be a disapppointing puzzle. There was little of merit, and the overuse of initial and final letter constructs that failed to contribute to the surface reading was irritating.
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Toughie No 176 by Citrus
Easier than the regular cryptic?
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Tuesday seems to be a good day to tackle your first Toughie. I sailed through this one, but enjoyed doing it.
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