Tuesday, September 29, 2009 (DT 25929)

This puzzle was originally published Friday, May 15, 2009 in The Daily Telegraph

Introduction

I found today's puzzle to be a rather fun one to do but very challenging - definitely much more difficult than any of those published recently; and I was pleased to see that the Brits (for once) appear to share my opinion. I did complete the puzzle, but I had to open the Tool Chest early and make extensive use of the puzzle solving tools found there. In the end, I remained mystified by the wordplay in one clue - but, understandably so, as the clue printed in the National Post was incorrect.

Error Alert

Clue 7d as printed in the National Post is incorrect. Here is the correct version:

7d Metallic material that could be seen in inro (7,4)

For an explanation of the solution, see Libellule's review on Big Dave's blog.

[For the benefit of readers without access to the National Post, it misprinted "inro" as "into".]

Today's Glossary

Some possibly unfamiliar abbreviations, people, places, words and expressions used in today's puzzle

Elia - pen name of English essayist Charles Lamb

lurgy - Brit. any highly infectious non-specific disease

marg - Brit. margarine

SE - abbrev. South-East: the region of England comprising London and surrounding areas

Today's Links

Libellule's review of today's puzzle may be found at Big Dave's Telegraph Crossword Blog [DT 25929].

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

7a Dispute about prosperous region being less moral? (5)

This was the last clue to be solved - and one that I spent a lot of time on. Very early, I had penciled in WORSE, but as I was not able to reconcile the wordplay, I was more than a little uncertain about it. However, as I progressed, the checking letters (W?R?E) produced a pattern matching WORSE - but I was still unable to sort out the wordplay. A search for words matching the checking letters turned up only two possibilities - WORSE and WARRE. But that created quite a dilemma since the two words are synonyms. Since both words fit the definition and the pattern of checking letters, the differentiator would have to be the wordplay (which was baffling me). In the former option (WORSE), I could see that "prosperous region" could be a reference to the South-East (SE) of England around London. I thought that "about" might be a containment indicator but got nowhere with that approach. As for the second option (WARRE), "dispute" could be WAR and "about" could be RE, but that left "prosperous region" unaccounted for. I was just about to toss in the towel, when the answer hit me like a bolt out of the blue - "dispute" is ROW and "about" is a reversal indicator. Voilà!

Signing off for today - Falcon