Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26065
Hints and tips by Tilsit
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Calderdale Hospital where yours truly is still recovering and likely to be here for a little while longer. This was a reasonably typical midweek puzzle which should please most people, although there were a couple of pitfalls here and there.
I thought a number of the surface readings were a little contrived for one or two clues, but otherwise it was a pleasant challenge.
As usual, the answers can be revealed by highlighting between the squiggly brackets and you can rate the puzzle by clicking on the star ratings. Feel free to comment, but newer posters need to be approved first to prevent those nasty spammers from peddling their rubbish.
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Toughie No 236 by Excalibur
In The Doldrums
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
You are either going to like this or hate it. Me I hated it. I guessed what I was dealing with after two or three clues and plodded on feeling older and wearier as I realised what each answer was. When I had finished I felt as if I had gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson.
Do we have any volunteers who might want to review an Excalibur Toughie? There has to be someone who likes this style of crossword and would be able to put in a good word.
Lets hope the normal cryptic is more enjoyable.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26064
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
The first thing to say about today’s puzzle is that there are no cricketing terms at all (well, 26a could relate to a cricket team, but I’ve chosen to go with football instead). Apart from that we have a novel anagram indicator in 7d and a strange, but entertaining, clue at 16d.
As usual the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets – just select the white space inside the brackets to reveal them, if you need to.
All comments, whether from seasoned campaigners or first-timers, are very welcome.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26063
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Another excellent start to the week from our Monday Maestro.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2505
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
Quite a tough puzzle this week – a change from the usual gentle Sunday stroll. No harm in this when it’s a prize puzzle, and an easy few months or so may have been deliberate while solvers adapted to a style very different to the old Sunday Telegraph puzzles.
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Toughie No 235 by Citrus
“You had me cornered”
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Today I have a special treat for you as Anax joins the reviewing panel. He will be known by name to solvers of puzzles in the Independent and by reputation to those in the Times where, as with the regular Telegraph cryptics, the setters are anonymous. The Bloggers page has been updated, so you can read more about Anax there, as well as getting an insight into why he uses the name Anax! I’m sure you can work out for yourselves that anagrind and inserticator are crosswordese for anagram and insertion indicators respectively. BD
The NE and SW corners of this were hard to crack – the former because I was just being a bit dim, the latter because of one obscurity and two bits of wordplay I had difficulty unravelling. Much of the early progress was thanks to going with instinct for the long answer at 4Dn, which gives me an opportunity for a quick solving tip; far from being put off by long answers, they’re often a very good place to start. The simple truth is you either get them immediately or you don’t, and if you do they can provide plenty of starters for cross-checking answers. If you don’t – well, it was worth looking.
I’m unfamiliar with this setter’s style so, inevitably, my solution has a few questioning ticks here and there, but that’s not always an indication of doubt over clue soundness. The Telegraph house style trends away from Ximenean and what might puzzle “purists” may well be perfectly OK here.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26061
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
I was guilty today of breaking rule #1 in the I-SPY Crossword Solvers’ Handbook, “Read the Clue Carefully”. On 17a I decided that the answer must be the name of a plant hidden in the clue, quickly scanned the letters until I found “ERICA”, wrote it in and moved on. Only later, when I couldn’t shoehorn the answer to 15d in, did I scratch my head and revisit 17a, to find that the clue specifies “plants” and not “plant”.
We have another delightful puzzle from Giovanni, full of amusing clues, but it’s no easier than last Friday’s (sorry, Barrie!).
The answers are hidden, as always, inside the curly brackets – highlight the white space if you need to reveal one.
We’d be delighted to get your comments on the puzzle or the review.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26056
A full analysis by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment **
Tilsit hopes to be back in this slot next week. This was quite an easy puzzle – mainly because the handful of obscure words like corncrib and insheathe were well clued.
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Toughie No 234 by Busman
Lemon Squeezy!
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
I had to check that I had printed out the right puzzle today – the answers all went in thick and fast and only the last across clue brought out the dictionary, and then only to check the spelling was correct.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26060
Hints and tips by Libellule
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
A comme ci comme ca crossword today, that has its moments. But after the fun I had doing yesterdays Toughie its hard to get excited by this one. The answers are hidden in the blank space between the curly brackets, just highlight it to read them directly. As usual feel free to leave comments.
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