+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
You have reached the world’s biggest and best crossword blog. If you are looking for help with the Daily and Sunday Telegraph cryptic crosswords, a total of 11 puzzles a week, then you have come to the right place.
If this is your first time, or for more information about this site, please click on Read More
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Hi all, and welcome to Toughie corner on a Tuesday which is sunny and bright at time and place of writing. Whatever the weather where you are, we have a bright and breezy puzzle from Chalicea to warm us up.
+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - +
BD Rating - Difficulty ** - Enjoyment ***
Hello, everyone. Today we have another quality puzzle that continues the recent run of enjoyable and satisfying crosswords where the difficulty falls right on the Tuesday sweet spot.
Last week Stephen Lord noticed that Kent had made numerous appearances in recent clues, and Senf pointed out that in the space of a week we'd met two US State capitals. If you'd like to know crosswordland's most popular UK locations and/or which US capitals have yet to appear as answers, click the spoiler box below.
I made a list of UK cities and counties (2,863 in all) and for each place searched through 184,000 back-page clues for appearances as locations. This table shows the most used cities and counties, along with their number of appearances:
| London | 185 |
| Kent | 48 |
| Yorkshire | 33 |
| Devon | 22 |
| Oxford | 20 |
| Cornwall | 19 |
| Surrey | 18 |
| Somerset | 15 |
| Sussex | 14 |
| Lincoln | 14 |
| Norfolk | 13 |
| Midlands | 13 |
| Essex | 13 |
| Cambridge | 13 |
Turning to Senf's question, 29 of the 50 US state capitals have been used as answers in back-page puzzles. The following 21 capitals have yet to make an appearance: Austin (TX), Boise (ID), Carson City (NV), Columbia (SC), Columbus (OH), Des Moines (IA), Dover (DE), Frankfort (KY), Harrisburg (PA), Hartford (CT), Jackson (MS), Jefferson City (MO), Lansing (MI), Madison (WI), Montgomery (AL), Montpelier (VT), Oklahoma City (OK), Pierre (SD), Raleigh (NC), Richmond (VA), and Saint Paul (MN). There are some good potential answers in that list, so I expect to see it getting shorter.
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
We have a nice puzzle here to ease us into the solving week. The checkers put in after the first read of the across clues provided great help with the solutions to the down clues.… Read More
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
Eight solutions can be linked together by joining a word at the end of one with a word at the start of another, eg SUNBAKED/BEANPOLE/CATCALL.… Read More
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
A very good Sunday morning from Winnipeg, where, this week, we had around 36 hours of seasonal temperatures, before the mercury took a nose-dive again, to the point that the high temperature on Monday occurred at 11:00pm.… Read More
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
As is usual for the weekend prize crosswords, an assortment of clues, including some of the more difficult ones, have been selected and hints provided for them.
Search this site ...
