Toughie No 3629 by Dada
Hints and tips by Whybird
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Hello and welcome to another Toughie week. Could someone kindly go out and switch the Wirral’s daylight on, please? It still feels like nighttime, although I know it isn’t, thanks to a disturbed night courtesy of Lord Alfie-du-Sniffs who dragged me from my slumbers twice for access to the garden… I should take that as a positive, but I’d much rather he hadn’t helped himself to whatever dubious substances he found whilst fossicking around Birkenhead Park yesterday!
We have something of a challenging puzzle from Dada today – definitely no Floughie for me. My heart sank when I saw the grid – I always find the proliferation of unchecked initial letters to be a challenge. Then I thought we might be on for an easy-to-spot Nina that may have helped, but, alas, no such luck – at least not as far as I can see! The solve wasn’t helped by getting my first one in (9a) wrong – being too clever for my own good. There are some quite tough nuts to crack amongst a smattering of “Gimmes”, and to my taste there are too many onomatopoeic-like terms employed. But there are also some gems, and some “usual suspects” with lesser-spotted – but perfectly fair – meanings to get the cogs whirring. Rosettes from me today for 15a (my last one in), 20a and 4d, but my overall prize goes to 2d.
Thanks to Dada for unlocking the mental machinery, and for the first time in a while providing me with an obvious bird illustration!
Please let us know how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31153
Hints and tips by Huntsman
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BD Rating – Difficulty * Enjoyment ***/****
Yet another cold & dreary looking day here in Harpenden. Roll on spring & a return to the fairways.
As Senf would say a Typically Tuesdayish puzzle which I’m assuming is the work of Anthony Plumb. I think I was a little unfair on last week’s production & certainly out of kilter with the majority of comment so am rather relieved that I found this one very enjoyable for the relatively short time it lasted. As ever tightly clued & with some humour in there too.
As usual there are an assortment of clips to enjoy or ignore.
In the hints below the definition element of each clue has been underlined, anagrams are CAPITALISED & the crossword technique “indicator words” are in brackets. The answers are concealed under the Click Here buttons. Please leave a comment below telling us what you thought & how you got on with the puzzle.
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Big Dave’s Blog Birthday Bash, 2026
by Rahmat Ali
Reviewed by Steve Cowling
Rahmat Ali has given us a very entertaining puzzle for the Birthday Bash, which was a pleasure to solve. There were a couple of new words for me, but the cluing was fair. I was fairly sure of my answers for these, but I did check the BRB to make sure.
If you haven’t done so, please download it here> BIG DAVE’S BLOG BIRTHDAY BASH, 2026 and give it a go. You will not be disappointed.
Thank you, Rahmat, for your sterling efforts in producing a fine puzzle. Thank you, Sloop John Bee for your help with this blog and for organising a fabulous get-together.
Orf we jolly well go! Please forgive any errors Continue reading “Big Dave’s Blog Birthday Bash, 2026 by Rahmat Ali”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31152
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Ottawa, where we are about to get a respite from a spell of bitterly cold weather (overnight lows below -20C and daytime highs below -12C). This week daytime temperatures will reach a more comfortable -5C. Our annual three week long Winterlude Festival has begun and the conditions are the best they have been in years. You can catch a glimpse of the preparations for the festivities in this video.
I found this to be a puzzle where the answers needed to be slowly teased out as the grid filled. In the end, I felt I had made harder work of it than it should have required. Nevertheless, it was certainly far from an unpleasant experience (and would have been even more enjoyable had I not been working under blogging pressure).
As the only way to halt my losing streak of setter predictions seems to be to stop predicting, I will not venture a guess this time.
In the hints below, underlining identifies precise definitions and cryptic definitions, FODDER is capitalized, and indicators are italicized. The answers will be revealed by clicking on the ANSWER buttons.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought of the puzzle.
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Three Days Late
By Sloop John Bee
Three Days Late
I wrote the above puzzle for The Birthday Bash, The Perimeter Nina should read BIG DAVE’S IS SEVENTEEN TODAY, but as the blog was born on the 28th January 2009 and the Bash wasn’t until the 31st it was Three Days Late!… Continue reading
Toughie No 3628 by Karla
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Thanks to Karla for an entertaining and not too tricky puzzle.
I am hoping to see many of you at Bridge House tomorrow.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31145
A full review by Rahmat Ali
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This puzzle was published on 24th January 2026
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Kolkata. A nice, lovely Saturday puzzle from NYDK that I enjoyed solving and thereafter writing a review of the same for your kind perusal and significant feedback. Continue reading “DT 31145 (Full Review)”
Toughie No 3627 by Django
Hints and tips by ALP
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BD Rating – Toughie difficulty * – Enjoyment ****
I always enjoy a Django: fun definitions and smart wordplay. Very gentle from him today, kicking off with a straight-in Spooner that rather set the tone. No bad thing – I’ve long suspected that setting a gentle but entertaining puzzle is even harder than setting a tough one. Over to you.
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