It seems you all like Gazza’s hints and tips, so I’ve twisted his arm and he’s agreed to do two days a week, starting today, and then back on Thursday. I’ve added a few new bits and pieces to The Mine – Birthstones, Roman Numerals and Zodiac Signs – with more in the pipeline. BD
Today’s puzzle is quite interesting and certainly a bit harder than yesterday’s. There’s one clue (24 across) where I’m unable to provide a very satisfactory explanation of the wordplay and I’d be grateful for comments [stop press – mystery now solved – see clue below] Continue reading “DT Cryptic No 25860”
Once again you have a nice easy start to the week, with this honest, straightforward puzzle. Try and do as much of this as you can without my help (but don’t put me out of business)!!
12.36 – Hooray! Somebody out there in Telegraphland is listening (or perhaps reading this blog!) – the problem now seems to be fixed, although I can’t go back and enter the missing answer (and Codewords 1231 has been fixed as well – see Edition 1 of this newsletter).
If you are reading this at the Telegraph – the printable grid for Friday’s Quick crossword, No 25857, still has nowhere for 1 down to be entered!!
I wasn’t going to, but I’ve decided to call these items ScrewedUp News instead of CluedUp News.
For the weekend prize crosswords I will select a few of the better clues and provide hints for them. A full analysis of this puzzle will be available at 12.00 next Thursday, February 26th.
12.58, Feb 22 – This problem has now been fixed. We were wrong, it wasn’t two numbers that needed to be changed, it was most of the grid!
This is the first of an irregular series of blogs about the ClueUp website. After the fiasco of yesterday’s accidental publication of today’s crossword, and the absence of any information about what was happening on the ClueUp site itself, I thought you might like a forum for information about the problems and their resolution, if any.
We published a full review, by Libellule, of this puzzle yesterday when it was accidentally released online. As our policy here is to provide hints only for the weekend prize crosswords that review has been removed, and will be reposted at 12.00 next Thursday, February 26th. Instead I have selected a few hints from that review. This will mean that Peter Biddlecombe will have a week off and be back on Thursday, 5th March with a review of next Saturday’s puzzle.
This puzzle has 5 stars for both difficulty and enjoyment. I knew soon after starting that it was going to be a struggle, but as I opened up each clue, I began to enjoy the contest. I will be interested to know what Dr B, my American friend, makes of this one as some of the clues have a uniquely British flavour. As usual, the links provide additional content which is usually useful, occassionally totally frivolous.
This is a review of the puzzle as published in the newspaper and now available online – the one that was originally published online turned out to be the Saturday Prize crossword!. Neither puzzle was anything special – nothing particularly good or annoyingly bad. For a real puzzle, see today’s Toughie No 99.
I never look forward to the Sunday puzzle, and I’m seldom surprised. This is another one that takes quite a while to complete, but leaves you wondering why you bothered. Continue reading “ST Cryptic No 2471 – Review”
This analysis is the first contribution from Peter Biddlecombe. Peter was Times crossword champion in 2000 and 2007 and is a pioneer in crossword blogging in the UK (see Times for the Times). I gave this two stars for both difficulty and enjoyment, Peter has been rather more generous and upped it to three! BD.
My time for this was about 60% longer than an average Times puzzle, but I made life hard for myself with two dud answers which had to be corrected – ROUGH OUT at 6D, though the weakness of “some golf = rough” should have made me rub this out, and INCITE at 22D. Without these, an ‘average Times’ time should have been possible.
Once again you have a nice easy start to the week, with this honest, straightforward puzzle. Try and do as much of this as you can without my help (but don’t put me out of business)!!
My time for this was about 60% longer than an average Times puzzle, but I made life hard for myself with two dud answers which had to be corrected – ROUGH OUT at 6D, though the weakness of “some golf = rough” should have made me rub this out, and INCITE at 22D. Without these, an ‘average Times’ time should have been possible.