Wednesday, March 30, 2011 (DT 26439)

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26439
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Monday, January 3, 2011
Setter Rufus
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26439]
Big Dave's Review Written By Libellule
Big Dave's Rating
Difficulty - ★★	Enjoyment - ★★★
Falcon's Performance ┌────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┐ ███████████████████████████████████ └────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┘ Legend: █ - solved without assistance █ - incorrect prior to use of puzzle solving tools █ - solved with assistance from puzzle solving tools █ - unsolved or incorrect prior to visiting Big Dave's blog
Notes The National Post has skipped DT 26438 which was published in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday, January 1, 2011

Introduction

Like a hurricane, this puzzle seems to have gained strength crossing the Atlantic. I certainly found it to be more difficult than the two stars awarded to it by Libellule. Most of my difficulty occurred in the northwest quadrant, where I eventually entered the correct solutions for 1a and 2d - with very little confidence of either one proving  to be correct.

Today's Glossary

Selected abbreviations, people, places, words and expressions appearing in today's puzzle.

[Items marked with an asterisk are from a Cumulative Glossary of entries appearing, since the beginning of this year, in either this blog or its companion blog, the Ottawa Citizen Cryptic Crossword Forum.]

Appearing in Clues:

Meanings listed in this section may reflect how the word is used in the surface reading of the clue. Of course, that meaning may be contributing to the misdirection that the setter is attempting to create.

bond - noun 4 [with modifier] Building a pattern in which bricks are laid in order to ensure the strength of the resulting structure.

jobber - noun

1. historical (in the UK) a principal or wholesaler who dealt only on the Stock Exchange with brokers, not directly with the public.
2. North American a wholesaler.
3. a person who does casual or occasional work.

sweet - noun 1 British a small shaped piece of confectionery made with sugar: a bag of sweets [Note: equivalent to the North American term candy]

touch - verb transitive 15. Slang To wheedle a loan or handout from: touched a friend for five dollars.

West Ham United Football Club - a English Premier League association football club based in Upton Park, Newham, East London.

Appearing in Solutions:

invigilator - noun British a person who supervises candidates during an examination

near - adjective 5 archaic (of a person) mean; miserly.

night porter - noun a porter on duty during the night

porter¹ - noun

1. a person employed to carry luggage and other loads, especially in a railway station, airport, hotel, or market.
2. dark brown bitter beer brewed from malt partly charred or browned by drying at a high temperature. [originally made as a drink for porters]

rackets (also, in North America,  racquets) - [American Heritage Dictionary] plural noun a game played on a large, netless, four-walled court by two or four players with long-handled rackets and a hard, fast-moving ball 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) in diameter.

Judging by the dictionary entries, it would seem that the name of the game is always rackets in Britain, whereas in North America the game may also go by the alternative (and, perhaps, preferred) name of racquets. However, in Britain (as in North America), the bat used in this or similar games apparently may be called either a racket or racquet. Also, rackets is not to be confused with racquetball, "a [chiefly North American] game played on a four-walled handball court by two or four players with short-handled rackets and a hollow rubber ball 2 ¹/₄ inches (5.7 centimeters) in diameter."

Appearing on Big Dave's blog

jolly - [Collins English Dictionary] noun 3. British slang a Royal Marine

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

This commentary should be read in conjunction with the review at Big Dave's Crossword Blog, to which a link is provided in the table above.

1a   Jobbers in bonds (11)

Although I did have BRICKLAYER as my solution, I had very little confidence in it. I did identify that bricklayers could be "jobbers". However, I was not aware of how the term bond () is used in the bricklaying trade. I was thinking merely of the word bond in the generic sense, and recognized that bricklayers would bond bricks together with mortar.

2d   Empty sheep range? (4)

I vacillated between REAM and ROAM as a solution. Ream can mean 'clear out or remove (material) from something', thus matching the "empty" part of the clue. However, Oxford characterises this as a 'North American' usage. That, combined with the lack of any discernible connection to "sheep range" caused me to reject it. I could see that ROAM might be O contained in RAM, and therefore guessed that "range" might be serving as an anagram indicator, with O coming from "empty" (as in the markings on a fuel gauge, for example). Using "range" as an anagram indicator would be a bit problematical, as "range" would almost certainly also be the definition. In the end, despite being highly skeptical about "range" doing double duty, I fortuitously elected to go with ROAM. Luckily, Gazza explains the wordplay (in response to a comment on Big Dave's site): "Think of empty as meaning having nothing in. So it’s a sheep with O (nothing) in it."

Signing off for today - Falcon