Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2520 – Hints
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
If you’ve never tried the Sunday Prize puzzle before, this one is a gentle introduction
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.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Friday, 29th January.
Continue reading “ST 2520 – Hints”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2519
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Another Sunday puzzle that’s easy for old hands but precisely clued.
Continue reading “ST 2519”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2519 – Hints
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
Once again one of the best puzzles of the week. Although this particular grid has four three-letter words, Virgilius has taken great trouble to provide clues that are a bit different.
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.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Friday, 22nd January.
Continue reading “ST 2519 – Hints”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2518
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ****
A very straightforward puzzle for me, but I won’t grumble this week – there’s plenty of room for puzzles with well-written clues that aren’t fiendishly difficult.
Continue reading “ST 2518”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2518 – Hints
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
First a bit of news. Alexa is the best-known site for ranking websites and today this blog’s rating dipped below 1,000,000 for the first time – 986,285 to be precise. What this means is that we are in the top million sites in the world! This is actually a 3-month average, the 7-day and 1-month figures are nearer to 500,000. Our UK rating, at 20,136, is even better. Please feel free to add your own review to Alexa – you can access their site by clicking the widget at the bottom of the sidebar.
Today we have another excellent puzzle from Virgilius, but don’t take my word for it – have a go yourself.
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.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Friday, 15th January.
Continue reading “ST 2518 – Hints”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2517
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment *****
A pretty straightforward puzzle this one – with one setter’s slip that’s already been acknowledged. Now that Sunday solvers are used to a different style of puzzle, I wonder whether the difficulty level might be increased just a bit?
Continue reading “ST 2517”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2516
A full analysis by Peter Biddlecombe
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment *****
I found this puzzle a little harder than some Sunday ones, even on a second solve after mislaying my original copy. 9A in particular kept me guessing for quite a while both times, and I’m pretty sure it was my last answer first time around. Even after the thematic extravaganza just before Christmas, there’s still some seasonal material, with wassailing at 16D and two lots of shopping (6D, 21D).
Continue reading “ST 2516”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2517 – Hints
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
Once again a well-constructed puzzle from Virgilius (the name by which Brian Greer is best known these days). Very few easy clues, but all the answers should be within the vocabulary of the average solver, with the possible exception of 20 down.
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.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Friday, 8th January.
Continue reading “ST 2517 – Hints”
Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 2516 – Hints
Hints and tips by Big Dave
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BD Rating – Difficulty *** – Enjoyment ****
A pleasant post-Christmas puzzle to solve while eating the left-over turkey!
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.
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them.
Peter Biddlecombe’s full review of this puzzle will be published at 12.00 on Tuesday, 5th January 2010.
Continue reading “ST 2516 – Hints”
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!]
Continue reading “ST 2515”