Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31064
Hints and Tips by Senf
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
A very good Wednesday morning from Winnipeg where, with a temperature of 4 degrees and a North wind blowing at 23 km/hr with gusts to 45 km/hr, the black coat had its first outing at this end of the year yesterday!
For me, etc© (I have to say that for Terence), somewhat quirky with some head scratching when it came to some of the parsings. I am not going to attempt to guess the setter, but thanks to them.
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 3338
A full review by crypticsue
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BD Rating – Difficulty **** – Enjoyment ***
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Toughie No 3569 by Dada
Hints and tips by Whybird
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment *****
Happy Tuesday, everyone! Autumn’s colours continue to develop, the winter thrushes are still arriving in good numbers and the Wirral’s leaves are by-and-large staying on the trees: no doubt waiting for the Garden Waste collection to go into hibernation before crashing down and piling up.
Dada’s turn to break us into the Toughie week, and I thought this was perfectly pitched, with some gimmes to get things moving, and a lot of clever and nuanced deceptions. It was very much the proverbial “Crossword of two halves, Brian” with the NW going in very quickly (14d excepted) and then the SE taking a while to get sorted. My stand-outs (amongst a very good crop) were 1a and 28a. Thank you, Dada, for an excellent puzzle.
Please leave a comment telling us how you fared and what you liked about the puzzle.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31063
Hints and tips by Huntsman
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BD Rating – Difficulty * Enjoyment ***/****.
The sun is at least struggling to put in an appearance & it’s not currently raining here in Harpenden but it looks like that’s but a temporary respite with more wet stuff on the way over the next couple of days. A few days golf in Portugal is starting to look more alluring by the day.
As our esteemed Sat or Sun even & alternate Wed blogger would say a typically Tuesdayish bit of Plumbing from the Prof that ought not to present too many difficulties for most solvers. As ever concisely clued with some neat wordplay & dashes of humour. For any that waltzed through this one Dada is over in t’other place with a Toughie that’s very manageable & I’m sure Whybird would appreciate your comments.
In the hints below the definition element of each clue has been underlined, anagrams are CAPITALISED & the crossword technique “indicator words” are in brackets. The answers are concealed under the Click Here buttons. Please leave a comment below telling us what you thought & how you got on with the puzzle.
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31062
Hints and tips by Falcon
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BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Ottawa, where we enjoyed a glorious Sunday under clear skies with the temperature in the mid-twenties. Today is more seasonable with temperatures falling to the mid-teens.
I sped through half the clues at a one-star pace but then bogged down. This may be due, in part, to some British geography and idiomatic expressions with which I was unfamiliar. I expect some solvers across the pond may find my rating to be too high.
I would like to thank Smylers for sitting in for me last week so I could enjoy a delicious Thanksgiving turkey dinner.
In the hints below, underlining identifies precise definitions and cryptic definitions, FODDER is capitalized, and indicators are italicized. The answers will be revealed by clicking on the ANSWER buttons.
Please leave a comment telling us what you thought of the puzzle.
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Sunday Toughie No 195
by Zandio (With a little help from CL)
Hints and Tips by Sloop John Bee
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Here We Go…
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Sunday Telegraph Cryptic No 3339 (Hints)
Hints and tips by Senf
A very good Sunday morning from Winnipeg where it is cooling down and the red scarf has been very much in evidence. It is getting close to the time when the black coat will have to come out of the closet!
For me, and I stress for me,© much better than last Sunday but not much value for money with only 27 clues. Three longish ones, 7 anagrams (4 partials), 1 lurker reversed, and no homophones; with 14 hints ‘sprinkled’ throughout the grid, you should/might be able to get the checkers to enable the solving of the unhinted clues.
If it is some time since you read, or if you have never read the instructions in RED below the hints then please consider doing so before commenting today as my electronic blue pencil is at the ready and the Naughty Step is OPEN!
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Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31061 (Hints)
The Saturday Crossword Club (hosted by crypticsue)
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Toughie No 3568 by Elgar
Hints and Tips by crypticsue
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BD Rating – Toughie Difficulty ***** – Enjoyment ****
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Hello, compiler here. Thanks very much for taking the time to solve, analyse and discuss.
I hope you might take a look at this weekend’s Sunday Toughie. I was in Yorkshire last month visiting Chris Lancaster, the Telegraph Puzzles Editor, and I had a newly-filled grid which I asked him to print out for me so I could write clues on the train journey home. Chris kindly did, and then immediately started suggesting ideas for clues. The upshot is, there are several clues in the Sunday Toughie that originated with Mr Lancaster. I’m pretty sure one of them will be the favourite clue of the day — an absolute corker (which I can say because it wasn’t my idea). Hope you enjoy it.
Thanks again for the feedback today. Have a great weekend.
14a, 1d, 2d and 19d were fighting it out for my podium, but I am not going to try and guess which clues Zandio is referring to; I enjoyed them all. I would like to have hinted many more, but the convention on prize puzzles limits me to about half hints. Even the Spoonerism missed the cut today (btw it is Russian)
We have 14a and 16d clues today, and I have hinted at half. Several lurkers that may trap the unwary and anagrams, including an &lit anagram, missed the cut, too.