Thursday, June 23, 2011 (DT 26514)

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26514
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, March 31, 2011
Setter Ray T
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26514]
Big Dave's Review Written By Big Dave
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 █ - reviewed by Falcon for Big Dave's blog

Introduction

A most enjoyable puzzle from Ray T today. There are a few Briticisms in it - but none which I have not previously encountered.

Today's Glossary

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

[An asterisk beside an entry merely indicates that it has been taken it from a Cumulative Glossary of entries which have previously appeared, 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.

[Inspector] Morse - a fictional character in the eponymous series of detective novels by British author Colin Dexter, as well as a 33-episode 1987–2000 television adaptation (in North American terms, a series of 33 two-hour made-for-television movies) of the same name.

Remembrance [of Things Past] (or In Search of Lost Time ; French: À la recherche du temps perdu) - a novel in seven volumes by Marcel Proust and his most prominent work. The novel is widely referred to in English as Remembrance of Things Past but the title In Search of Lost Time, a literal rendering of the French, has gained in usage since D. J. Enright adopted it in his 1992 revision of the earlier translation by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin. The complete story contains nearly 1.5 million words and is one of the longest novels in world literature.

stretch - noun 2 [3^rd entry] informal a period of time spent in prison: a four-year stretch for tax fraud

Appearing in Solutions:

[Sir Edward "Ted"] Heath - (1916 – 2005), British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–74) and as Leader of the Conservative Party (1965–75). He was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1950-2001.

lag³ - noun British informal a person who has been frequently convicted and sent to prison: both old lags were sentenced to ten years' imprisonment

*rum² - adjective British informal, dated odd; peculiar: it's a rum business, certainly

sweet - noun 2 British a sweet dish forming a course of a meal; a pudding or dessert.

vest - noun 1 British an undergarment worn on the upper part of the body, typically having no sleeves. [i.e., an undershirt - noun chiefly North American an undergarment worn under a shirt; a vest.]

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.

10a   Novelist's page put out about opening of 'Remembrance ...' (6)

In this very clever clue, we are looking for a French novelist, PROUST. The wordplay is {P (page) + OUST (put out)} containing R (opening of Remembrance; i.e., first letter of 'Remembrance'). The beauty of the clue is that Remembrance of Things Past is undoubtedly this novelist's most prominent work.

27a   Spy, shirtless perhaps, that is holding gun (11)

In the surface reading, "spy" is a noun but, in the cryptic reading, it becomes a verb. The definition is "spy" for which the solution is INVESTIGATE with the wordplay being IN VEST (shirtless perhaps) + {IE (['i.e.', the abbreviation for the Latin expression id est meaning] that is) containing GAT (gun)}. Vest is the British term for undershirt. Thus if one were shirtless, one might be "in vest" (unless you happen to be Clark Gable - who is reputed to have decimated the sales of undershirts when he removed his shirt in the 1934 film It Happened One Night to reveal that he wasn't wearing one. ).

By the way, although Big Dave's statement that 'gat' is "the abbreviation for a machinegun with a cluster of rotating barrels" is technically correct, it may also be misleading. According to Oxford Dictionaries Online, the word gat did originate as an abbreviation of  Gatling gun, a rapid-fire, crank-driven gun with clustered barrels. The first practical machine gun, it was officially adopted by the US army in 1866. However, as I understand the term, gat is actually early 20th century American mobster slang for a revolver or pistol - not a machine gun. Perhaps the name comes from a perceived similarity between the rotating cylinder of a revolver and the multiple rotating barrels of a Gatling gun.

21d   European Commission retreat, sweet for the French! (6)

Having used the phrase "the French" in 19d to mean "the French word for 'the'", the setter changes gears in this clue. Here, "sweet for the French" means a French dessert ('sweet' being a British expression meaning dessert).

Signing off for today - Falcon