Monday, August 15, 2011 - DT 26557

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26557
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Friday, May 20, 2011
Setter Giovanni
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26557]
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
Notes This puzzle appears on the Monday Diversions page of the Saturday, August 13, 2011 edition of the National Post

Introduction

I needed quite a bit of aid from my electronic assistants today. In addition, I had to look up a couple of British slang expressions (moggie and swot) just to understand the clue.

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.

moggie (also moggy) - noun British informal a cat.

swot - British informal verb [a] study assiduously: kids swotting for GCSEs  [b] (swot up on) study (a subject) intensively, especially in preparation for something: swot up on the country's driving laws before you go; (swot something up) I‘ve always been interested in old furniture and I’ve swotted it up a bit  noun derogatory a person who studies very hard.

Zola Budd - South African-born former Olympic track and field competitor (for Britain in 1984 and South Africa in 1992) who, in less than three years, twice broke the world record in the women's 5000 metres and twice was the women's winner at the World Cross Country Championships. Budd's career was unusual in that she mainly trained and raced barefoot. Her achievements on the track were often overshadowed by the political controversy she aroused during her short stay in the United Kingdom.

Appearing in Solutions:

*AB² - abbreviation [1^st entry] able seaman, noun a rank of sailor in the Royal Navy above ordinary seaman and below leading seaman

Aubrey Beardsley - (1872 – 1898), English illustrator and author whose drawings, executed in black ink and influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A. McNeill Whistler. Beardsley's contribution to the development of the Art Nouveau style and the poster movement was significant, despite the brevity of his career before his early death from tuberculosis.

Barbican (formally the Barbican Centre) - the largest performing arts centre in Europe. Located in the north of the City of London, England, in the heart of the Barbican Estate, the Centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exhibitions. It also houses a library, three restaurants, and a conservatory. The London Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra are based in the Barbican Centre's concert hall.

cedilla - noun a mark (¸) written under the letter c, especially in French, to show that it is pronounced like an s rather than a k (e.g. façade).

garçon - French waiter

Lolita - novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris and 1958 in New York, and later translated by the author into Russian. The book is internationally famous for its innovative style and infamous for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, middle-aged Humbert Humbert, who becomes obsessed and sexually involved with a 12-year-old girl named Dolores Haze for whom his private nickname is Lolita.

mug² - verb (mug something up) British informal learn or revise a subject as far as possible in a short time: I'm constantly having to mug up things ahead of teaching them; we had mugged up on all things Venetian before the start of the course

*nob¹ - noun British informal a person of wealth or high social position.

*RE - abbreviation (in the UK) Royal Engineers, the field engineering and construction corps of the British army

snook² - noun (in phrase cock a snook) informal, chiefly British [a] place one‘s hand so that the thumb touches one’s nose and the fingers are spread out, in order to express contempt. [b] openly show contempt or a lack of respect for someone or something: he spent a lifetime cocking a snook at the art world

up - adverb 4 [2^nd entry] British at or to a university, especially Oxford or Cambridge: they were up at Cambridge about the same time

virginal - noun (usually virginals) an early spinet with the strings parallel to the keyboard, typically rectangular, and popular in 16th and 17th century houses.

yeomanry - noun [treated as singular or plural] historical [a] a group of men who held and cultivated small landed estates. [b] (in Britain) a volunteer cavalry force raised from the yeomanry (1794–1908).

Appearing on Big Dave's Site:

neat² - noun archaic [a] a bovine animal. [b] [mass noun] cattle.

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.

4a   Separate area reached by sailors (8)

I struggled a bit to understand how the word "reached" is used in this clue. In the end, I concluded that the definition is "separate" and the wordplay is TRACT (area [of land]) touching (reached by) ABS (sailors) in which AB (able seaman) is a rank in the Royal Navy. The solution is ABSTRACT, meaning to extract or remove (something).

Signing off for today - Falcon