Thursday, August 5, 2010

Thursday, August 5, 2010 (DT 26228)

This puzzle, by Giovanni, was originally published in The Daily Telegraph on Friday, April 30, 2010

Introduction

Another fine creation from Giovanni, this puzzle contains some words which are new to me. However, I was able to work out several of them from the wordplay before checking the dictionary to confirm that they actually exist. Gazza rates the puzzle at four stars for difficulty and three stars for enjoyment.

Today's Glossary

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

Used in Solutions:

apparat - noun chiefly historical the administrative system of a communist party, especially in a communist country.

candour - British spelling of candor

langue d'oc - noun the form of medieval French spoken south of the Loire, generally characterized by the use of oc to mean ‘yes’, and forming the basis of modern Provençal. Compare with Occitan.

nappy1 - noun British a piece of towelling or other absorbent material wrapped round a baby's bottom and between its legs to absorb and retain urine and faeces.

newsagent - noun British a person or shop selling newspapers, magazines, confectionery, etc.

quarrel2 - noun historical a short heavy square-headed arrow or bolt used in a crossbow or arbalest.

RA - abbreviation (in the UK) Royal Academician or Royal Academy.

ready - noun (plural readies) (readies or the ready) British informal available money; cash.

Shaitan - noun (in Muslim countries) the Devil or an evil spirit.

Today's Links

Gazza's review of today's puzzle may be found at Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26228].

Big Dave also provides a link to a Daily Telegraph article on Roger Squires (whose puzzles appear in The Daily Telegraph under the pseudonym - or should I say crucinom - Rufus). This article appeared on the occasion of the publication of his 1000th puzzle in The Daily Telegraph.

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

22a Province not disorderly with a disturbance curtailed (7)

There is certainly no excuse for Ottawa residents - or anyone else in the province - to miss the solution to this clue.

Signing off for today - Falcon

2 comments:

  1. Rufus is Roger's pseudonym in the Guardian. The normal daily DT cryptics are not published with the setter's names.
    Regards
    Libellule

    ReplyDelete
  2. Libellule,

    Thanks for the clarification.

    For the benefit of other readers, as Libellule says, puzzles appear in The Daily Telegraph (as they do in the National Post) without attribution. Many of the British cryptic crossword setters appear in different publications under different pseudonyms. Roger Squires is identified on Big Dave's site as Rufus - his pseudonym in the Guardian (where puzzles are attributed to particular compilers).

    Falcon

    ReplyDelete

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