Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26126
A Happy New Year
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Those of us feeling a trifle fragile after last night and hoping for a gentle easing into 2010 may find this one a trifle more difficult than hoped-for. It’s well up to Giovanni’s usual standard and is highly enjoyable, but the 13a clue may be a total mystery to anyone who is not into rugby.
As usual the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets – just highlight the white space inside to reveal.
May I take this opportunity to wish everyone – fellow bloggers, illustrious setters and all our readers – a Very Happy New Year. Let’s hope that this year brings as many enjoyable puzzles as last year.
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New Year’s Eve Toughie No 277 by Elgar
2 + 9 = 15
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Elgar gives us yet another treat and a completely unexpected theme linking all of the answers.
SPOILER ALERT – only reveal the next sentence if you are really stuck
{All answers contain at least one instance of the letters RE, which are ignored in the wordplay – except for 10a, which is odd (unless I’m missing something). The first number in brackets refers to the number of letters used in the wordplay.}
My favourite clues are shown in blue (although it feels like a slightly odd thing to do – normally I’d highlight such clues only if they adhere to standard cryptic format).
For the utterly bamboozled, answers are shown within curly brackets – click and highlight to reveal them. And please chip in and let us know what you thought of the puzzle.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26125
Hints and tips by Libellule
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
An enjoyable crossword to end the year (at least I thought so), with a bit of a themed New Year crossword. How many references can you spot?
As usual the answers are hidden in the curly brackets, so if you cannot work out the answer from the explanation, just highlight to reveal. If any of you have any comments, feel free to leave one. Finally can I wish all of the setters, the bloggers and all of our readers a happy New Year.
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Toughie No 276 by Excalibur
Liquorice All-Sorts
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
Firstly, thanks to Big Dave for stepping in and doing my Cryptic review yesterday – it’s amazing how the loss of one’s broadband link for just 24 hours produces withdrawal symptoms!
Today’s puzzle is by the setter who polarises opinions more than any other Toughie setter. While I don’t think this is a great puzzle and it’s not really Toughie standard, it is nevertheless a distinct improvement on the ones we were getting from this setter 6-9 months ago – most of the surface readings are reasonable and we’re now getting less of the convoluted word order which were a feature of previous puzzles.
As usual we’d love to get your views – please leave a comment.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26124
Winding Up or Down the Year
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
Another gentle wind-down towards year’s end in keeping with the recent run of daily puzzles, which seem to be finding a good level for solvers. I am sure that most of the regulars will find this acceptable. There were a few really nice clues, but a couple of weak ones. These seem again to be the cryptic definitions.
If I have one wish for this particular puzzle in 2010, it’s that our setters will not try to outdo each other by trying to come up with smarter and smarter cryptic definitions. A good cryptic definition will come naturally and push all the right buttons, but I believe that far too many are forced and demonstrate a lack of adventure and thought on the part of the setter.
If you have finished this, and have a little time to spare, try these two challenges from the Guardian of the past two days by Giovanni and Elgar respectively. Both extremely enjoyable!
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2009/12/22/gdn.cryptic.20091229.pdf
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2009/12/22/gdn.cryptic.20091230.pdf
Rant over. Can I take this opportunity to wish you all a happy and challenging New Year and thanks to everyone for their kind comments and messages during 2009. See you next year!
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Toughie No 275 by Giovanni
On Yer Bike!
(or If you think you have 26ac, you probably haven’t!)
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
A solid start to the last week of Toughies for 2009 with Giovanni giving us his usual elegant style to test us. A nice mixture of the teasingly simple through to one clue whose answer I was almost convinced that Clued Up had got wrong until I used TEA and found an alternative that I had not heard of before. Indeed, Had I not had Clued Up today, I would have gone away thinking that I had the right answer. More of that in a while.
As usual, we would love to hear your thoughts, so let us have them by using the form at the end of the blog. Newer posters should note that it can take a little while for first posts to appear as they are always moderated to prevent spammers. You can also rate the puzzle using our star system, which I would venture is a little more accurate that the Clued Up system, as I haven’t managed to fathom theirs out yet.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26123
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
It looks like we can look forward to a week of very gentle puzzles, if the pattern for yesterday and today is continued. Perhaps this is to be Clueless Club week!!
Gazza’s new broadband connection has broken, so I am filling in for him today (and Tilsit is doing battle with the Toughie). [15:30 – Gazza is now back online, and all set to tackle tomorrow’s Toughie.]
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.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26122
Hints and tips by Rishi
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Today’s crossword by our Monday Maestro is mostly easy but there are also a few difficult clues that yield themselves only after we consider them for a while.
As usual, the answers are whitened. If you want to see any, please select the space within the curly brackets. Wordplay is explained in such a way that, if one wishes, one might work out the answer oneself before proceeding to uncover the solution.
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.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2515
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment *****
Not too surprisingly, this puzzle has a seasonal greeting and many seasonal answers and clues – only five clue/answer combinations have nothing to do with Christmas or midwinter, by my reckoning. I went slightly astray by guessing a wrong continuation of the greeting in 28A, but this didn’t hold me up for long. There’s a fair number of very easy clues and a bit of repetition (one = I occurs at least three times) but the entertainment and theme is worth it. The message is repeated from me, especially if you should be reading this on the day when it’s scheduled to appear, with the addition of “, bloggers, setters and editors”. Now go back to your family and/or friends!
[As usual, I wrote this before reading the comments on Sunday – pleased to see that Brian has abandoned whatever anonymity he’d managed to keep. I hope my reports on his puzzles don’t sound too creepy – he’s one of my favourite setters and that’s hard to disguise. If there is anything to criticise, I’ll be on to it, but he doesn’t slip up very often!]
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Toughie No 100001 by Elgar
Christmas Streamer
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
This is a marvellous piece of crossword construction by a superbly entertaining setter. As we’ve come to expect there is a smattering of rule bending but we wouldn’t have it any other way, and the rewards are spectacularly good. With so many answers contributing to the message it’s inevitable that a couple of obscurities have crept in, but that didn’t spoil the fun for me.
The message itself takes up no less than 12 grid entries – in order, 20d, 12a, 28a, 15d, 10a, 1a, 17d, 5a, 21a, 30a, 16a and 9a – a mighty achievement and you’ll see how these placings pretty much forced everything else into place. The message forms the first lines of a poem by George R Sims.
My favourite clues are shown in blue – how do they compare with yours? 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.
A Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.
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