Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2547 (Hints)
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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It may have been me, but I found this a little more difficult than usual! Perhaps it was because I was watching the Hungarian Grand Prix at the same time.
Don’t forget that you can give your assessment of the puzzle. Five stars if you thought it was great, one if you hated it, four, three or two if it was somewhere in between.
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Friday, 6th August.
Continue reading “ST 2547 (Hints)”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2546
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Apologies for the slow report – it’s been a busy week. This was a fairly easy puzzle, with clues of the usual high standard.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2546 (Hints)
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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Another excellent puzzle from Virgilius – enjoy!
Don’t forget that you can give your assessment of the puzzle. Five stars if you thought it was great, one if you hated it, four, three or two if it was somewhere in between.
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Friday, 30th July.
Continue reading “ST 2546 (Hints)”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2545
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
A pretty straightforward puzzle after the two thematic Sundays. Not much excitement on the face of it, but we still get very precise clues, and a little bit of novelty at 20A.
Continue reading “ST 2545”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2545 (Hints)
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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No theme this week!
Don’t forget that you can give your assessment of the puzzle. Five stars if you thought it was great, one if you hated it, four, three or two if it was somewhere in between.
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Friday, 23rd July.
Continue reading “ST 2545 (Hints)”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2544
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment *****
This took me about twice as long as an average Sunday puzzle, despite having thematic material nearly identical to a puzzle I blogged at the beginning of the 2010 World Cup. I can’t see now why it took so long – there are plenty of anagrams that now seem rather obvious. And I have to tip my neophyte setter’s cap to the clue-writing skill here – as well as the thematic aspects discussed below, he somehow gets away with four uses of SA or South Africa, and deftly marshals the crossword clichés like SAY and ED in 28 and meanings like those of “players”, and “supporter”.
Continue reading “ST 2544 – Wot, no vuvuzelas?”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2544 (Hints)
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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For the second week running we have a topical theme! As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.
Don’t forget that you can give your assessment of the puzzle. Five stars if you thought it was great, one if you hated it, four, three or two if it was somewhere in between.
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Friday, 16th July.
Continue reading “ST 2544 (Hints)”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2543
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
It’s the fourth of July and the puzzle is from a setter who likes to do themes and has worked in the US for the last decade or so. So no surprise that there’s stuff about Independence Day and the USA, past and present. I guess this is a pretty wide thematic range, but I’m still impressed by the 3 very relevant 15-letter acrosses and a grid where the effect of the thematic material is small – the single extra black square in the top and bottom rows. (The 3-word columns at the edges don’t matter as there are only 29 grid entries.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2543 (Hints)
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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It shouldn’t take long to spot today’s theme! As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.
Don’t forget that you can give your assessment of the puzzle. Five stars if you thought it was great, one if you hated it, four, three or two if it was somewhere in between.
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Friday, 9th July.
Continue reading “ST 2543 (Hints)”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2542
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Back to the routine format for this report. The content of the grid is not routine – I can’t see any significant presence of those old favourite crossword grid visitors. And the clues are … you know what I’m going to say.
One other thing: The first puzzle of mine (edited by Don Manley) to appear in real print is in this week’s Church Times. For one week you can see it in their online version here. To print from this page with a complete grid image, copy/paste the heading, grid and clues to Microsoft Word or similar. Or print pages 2-4 in landscape if you want a quicker way. [I haven’t checked what happens in browsers other than Firefox – it might print fine as it is in Internet Explorer]
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