Friday, July 15, 2011 - DT 26532

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26532
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, April 21, 2011
Setter Ray T
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26532]
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

I needed a fair amount of help from my Tool Chest today, and still didn't fully comprehend the wordplay for a couple of clues. I overlooked the homophone at 17d and, having not the slightest idea of who (or what) Del Boy might be, mistakenly thought that Trigger (Roy Roger's horse) might be the TROTTER at 19d - with the wordplay being T (beginning to top) + ROTTER (rogue Del Boy).

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.

Del Boy - Derek Edward Trotter more commonly known as "Del Boy", is the fictional lead character in the popular BBC sitcom Only Fools and Horses and one of the main characters of its prequel, Rock & Chips.

Appearing in Solutions:

boob¹ - informal noun 1 British an embarrassing mistake. 2 North American a foolish or stupid person. verb British make an embarrassing mistake.

*ER - abbreviation Queen Elizabeth. [from Latin Elizabetha Regina]

gen - noun British informal information: you've got more gen on him than we have

*N³ - symbol chess knight.

OS - abbreviation [6^th entry] (as a size of clothing) outsize, adjective (also outsized) exceptionally large: an outsize bed; her outsized glasses

R² - abbreviation [12^th entry] rook (in recording moves in chess): 21.Rh4

rot - noun 3 informal, chiefly British nonsense; rubbish: don't talk rot; [as exclamation] ‘Rot!’ she said with vehemence

rotter - noun informal, dated, chiefly British a cruel, mean, or unkind person: Rosemary had decided that all men were rotters

sprat - [Collins English Dictionary] noun 1. a small marine food fish, Clupea sprattus, of the NE Atlantic Ocean and North Sea: family Clupeidae (herrings) See also brisling

Signing off for today - Falcon