Tuesday, June 14, 2011 - DT 26506

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26506
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Setter Unknown
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26506]
Big Dave's Review Written By Gazza
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

Today's puzzle contained a few new British expressions - not to mention a fair number of old ones. As you can see from the chart above, it presented considerably more of a challenge for me than Gazza's two stars for difficulty would seem to suggest.

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.

dish - verb 2 informal, chiefly British utterly destroy or defeat: the election interview dished Labour's chances

host² - noun 2 archaic an army.

ladder - noun  2 British a vertical strip of unravelled fabric in tights or stockings.

Appearing in Solutions:

*B³ - symbol 1 chess bishop.

barmy - adjective British informal mad; crazy: I thought I was going barmy at first; extremely foolish: this is a barmy decision

chunter - verb [no object] British informal 1 talk or grumble monotonously: she chuntered on about her problems; 2 [with adverbial of direction] move along slowly and noisily: the car came chuntering up the track

dummy run - noun British a practice or trial.

gorgon - noun [a] Greek Mythology each of three sisters, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa, with snakes for hair, who had the power to turn anyone who looked at them to stone. Medusa was killed by Perseus. [b] a fierce, frightening, or repulsive woman.

Gorgonzola - noun a type of rich , strong-flavoured Italian cheese with bluish-green veins.

hunter - noun 2 a watch with a hinged cover protecting the glass.

OTT - abbreviation British informal over the top: presenting him as a goalscoring Superman seems a bit OTT

[Emile] Zola - (1840–1902), French novelist and critic; full name Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola. His series of twenty novels collectively entitled Les Rougon - Macquart (1871–93), including Nana (1880), Germinal (1885), and La Terre (1887), attempts to show how human behaviour is determined by environment and heredity.

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.

24a   Sounds like old man is a spouter (6)

The definition is spouter, for which the solution is GEYSER. The wordplay is "sounds like GEEZER (old man)".

While 'geezer' and 'geyser' are not pronounced the same in North America, they are in Britain - as you can hear for yourself by comparing the British and American pronunciations at TheFreeDictionary.com (geyser, geezer).

Signing off for today - Falcon