Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31200
Hints and tips by Falcon
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Ottawa, where the temperature roller coaster is heading upwards. Temperatures that have recently been in the neighbourhood of -10 C are forecast to hit +15 C today.
Today’s puzzle, though, does not depart from the recent trend of gentle introductions to the cruciverbal week.
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.
Continue reading “DT 31200”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31194
Hints and tips by Smylers
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★★
Hello. I’d claim it’s always a good time to visit Ilkley, but now’s a particularly good time, with it looking like this:
(Click to enlarge.)
Continue reading “DT 31194”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31188
Hints and tips by Falcon
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Ottawa where the roller coaster weather continues. One day the temperature dips to minus 20 C at night and a day or two later hits a daytime high of plus 12 C. Fortunately, this week, we were not at the bottom of this cycle when the furnace maintenance man showed up for his annual inspection and promptly shut off the gas and slapped a red tag on the furnace (signifying it was unfit for use). There followed a scramble to install a new furnace. In that situation, one certainly is not in a strong position to shop around and bargain.
Today’s puzzle provides a gentle warmup for the undoubtedly more challenging solving exercises ahead.
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.
Continue reading “DT 31188”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31182
Hints and tips by Smylers
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★★★
Hello from Ilkley. Here are some photos from a day trip this weekend — where did we go? (People from Yorkshire, please let others answer first!)
I liked all the clues in today’s Telegraph cryptic crossword. I got fewer answers on the first pass than I often do on Mondays, so I’ve rated it ★★ rather than ★ for difficulty. But several of the ones I skipped were those I’d successfully identified as anagrams, which I find hard to work out until I have crossing letters; if you’re somebody who can solve anagrams straight away, you may find it easier than I did.
Continue reading “DT 31182”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31176
Hints and tips by Falcon
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty * – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Ottawa where, following a brief spell where the daytime temperatures got above the freezing point, we are about to return to more frigid temperatures. It’s definitely a long way from spring here. This idea of spring starting on March 1st that Senf mentioned yesterday must be an invention of British meteorologists. I’ve never encountered it on this side of the pond.
I will not hazard a guess as to today’s setter. Smylers figures that at least four setters may be sharing Monday duties. Unless a setter displays characteristics as distinctive as those of RayT, I am hopeless at identifying them.
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.
Continue reading “DT 31176”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31170
Hints and tips by Smylers
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★★
Hello from Ilkley, part of the City of Bradford, last year’s UK City of Culture. That involved hosting the Turner Prize, the exhibition for which we finally got round to visiting this weekend. Here are some pictues of works by Mohammed Sami, winner Nnena Kalu, and two of Zadie Xa’s golden-floored room (in which we had to remove our shoes):
Continue reading “DT 31170”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31164
Hints and tips by Falcon
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty */** – Enjoyment ****
Greetings from Ottawa, where today is Family Day – a mid-winter public holiday in Canada (what those of you on the other side of the pond would call a bank holiday). It is also the final day of Winterlude, Ottawa’s annual winter festival. On my last appearance here, which coincided with the first weekend of Winterlude, I rather unsuccessfully attempted to include a video showing some of the early stages of the event. At that time, the ice sculptors were just beginning work on their creations. Today’s video shows them well on the way to completion. The video concludes with a cute little parable that a few world leaders would do well to take to heart!
I spent some interesting time researching today’s musical dive into history. It dates to a period shortly before my time (which means it will be almost prehistoric for those who reported Karen Carpenter was before their time) and it may not even be too modern for Daisygirl!
I thought the puzzle was well suited to the Monday slot – a gentle but fun start to the week. For me, it was borderline one or two star difficulty.
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.
Continue reading “DT 31164”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31158
Hints and tips by Smylers
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ★ – Enjoyment ★★★★
Hello. My cast is off, so I have both hands available for typing again. My left wrist is still weak though: things I’ve recently discovered I’m still unable to do include stabbing a piece of (raw) carrot with a fork, and clap. I was at a black-tie industry dinner on Friday, which mainly seemed to exist so that the people who organized it could all thank each other in turn; I ended up miming a lot of applauding.
Anyway, on to today’s Telegraph cryptic crossword, which I found perfect for those who prefer more straightforward crosswords on a Monday. There was no obscure vocabulary, so if the 13-year-old doesn’t have any homework today, I’m considering printing this out for them to do instead.
Continue reading “DT 31158”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31152
Hints and tips by Falcon
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ** – Enjoyment ***
Greetings from Ottawa, where we are about to get a respite from a spell of bitterly cold weather (overnight lows below -20C and daytime highs below -12C). This week daytime temperatures will reach a more comfortable -5C. Our annual three week long Winterlude Festival has begun and the conditions are the best they have been in years. You can catch a glimpse of the preparations for the festivities in this video.
I found this to be a puzzle where the answers needed to be slowly teased out as the grid filled. In the end, I felt I had made harder work of it than it should have required. Nevertheless, it was certainly far from an unpleasant experience (and would have been even more enjoyable had I not been working under blogging pressure).
As the only way to halt my losing streak of setter predictions seems to be to stop predicting, I will not venture a guess this time.
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.
Continue reading “DT 31152”
Daily Telegraph Cryptic No 31146
Hints and tips by Smylers
+ – + – + – + – + – + – + – +
BD Rating – Difficulty ★★ – Enjoyment ★★★★
Welcome to today’s Telegraph cryptic crossword, which I hope you enjoyed as much as I did. I had planned an intro and a book review, as usual, but the time I’d set aside yesterday evening for typing them I instead spent solving Chris Lancaster’s poignant Toughie — for which I make no apology. If, like me, you aren’t really a Toughie-level solver, I still recommend giving this one a go; with lots of help from Sloop John Bee’s hints (and a little assistance from some letter-matching software), it is possible to get there.
I hope everybody has fun at this website’s Birthday Bash next weekend. Sorry I can’t be with you this year; I shall miss seeing you all. And if you haven’t heard of this, everybody reading this is welcome — click the link in the previous sentence for details.
Continue reading “DT 31146”
