Toughie No 225 by Notabilis
Taken at the Flood
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
There’s a bit of a theme involving water and leaks in this puzzle by one of my favourite Toughie setters. Getting the answer to one of his clues is often only the first step – you then have an enjoyable battle with the wordplay to try to understand it fully. This puzzle does not disappoint, with some lovely twists.
This week’s Toughies are looking good so far – let’s hope the trend continues! We’d love to get a comment from you, whether containing bouquets or brickbats.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26047
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment **
Tilsit is taking a few days off to attend to other matter, but don’t worry he’s not unwell and should be back next week. Today’s puzzle is one of those that will probably split the opinions into two. The more experienced solvers will dismiss it, and the less experienced will be happy that they have finished it.
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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Toughie No 224 by Micawber
Result happiness!
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
We have been having some nice easy Tuesday Toughies for a few weeks now…. Well its time to wake up and smell the coffee. A really enjoyable crossword, with some great surface readings and clues to make you smile. Getting some of the longer answers early on will help.
Feel free to leave a comment.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26046
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
Regular solvers will doubtless recognise the style of today’s setter – all single-word answers, a good variety of clue types and few proper nouns. It was a good workout with some smiles along the way.
As usual the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets, so that you do not see them by accident; if you do want to see one, just highlight the white space inside the brackets.
All comments are welcome, whether from regular contributors or first timers.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26045
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ***
It was nice to get going on this typical Rufus puzzle after my earlier brush with DT 49. I had missed the wonderful cryptic definitions that are to be found here.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 49
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
I managed to pick this up from CluedUp when I asked for today’s puzzle. You can get to it by entering 49 into the puzzle number in the Search Puzzle Archive on the main crossword puzzles page. You will find that it is dated today! It also uses exactly the same grid as DT 26045 – coincidence?
Maybe it was just the biorhythms, but I found this to be a little harder than the average Monday puzzle. There are enough charades today for a whole TV program (for those who remember “Give Us a Clue”).
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2502
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
A fairly straightforward puzzle, with one very minor possible slip-up by the setter at 26D.
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Toughie No 223
About as Tough as a Toughie can be!
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BD Rating – Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment *****
Following some recent comments, I would like to reiterate that this blog, like millions of other blogs on the World Wide Web, expresses the personal views of the various contributors. Just as with music, some people love a particular artist and others hate them (I personally can’t stand Elton John or Rap music). Should you disagree with those views, you are more than welcome to comment; I have yet to refuse a comment other than spam, and these are trapped by a filter from Akismet. If you have not yet read the Disclaimer then please do.
Today’s puzzle is a breath of fresh air for those of us that are avid Ximeneans and like our Toughies to be tough but fair. Is it too tough in places? Probably. But then we deserve this kind of challenge from time to time.
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 26043
Hints and tips by Gazza
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ****
It’s Friday already and we have another gem from our usual Friday setter, full of immaculately constructed clues with a few chuckles thrown in. I debated whether to give this three or four stars for difficulty, and ended up with four. I’m sure we’ll get comments ranging from “easiest of the week” to “total nightmare” – please do continue to give us your views; it’s the variety of comments that makes the blog so interesting!
As usual the answers are hidden inside the curly brackets – highlight the white space if you want to reveal them.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 26038
The Big Ones Get Away!
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment **
Having been a solver for many years, I always looked forward to Saturday’s puzzles. Each paper usually offered you more than one puzzle, and invariably, the puzzle you got on a Saturday was something special. Sadly I don’t feel that magic with the Telegraph puzzle. It’s an OK challenge, but I don’t get to feel the magic that you get with other papers and setters. This week’s contained a couple of good clues, but they were taken down by the two long answers in the centre. Both were clued with cryptic definitions, and while you could argue one was reasonable, I simply had not heard of the expression, and the other struck me as too remote and obscure to lead to the answer. The grid itself didn’t help with the centre almost isolated. I recognised the across answer, but had to guess at the down one. Even an anagram might have helped a bit.
Anyway, whine over, off we go. Your comments as to how you coped with the puzzle are welcomed.
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