Friday, September 9, 2011 - DT 26580

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26580
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, June 16, 2011
Setter Ray T
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26580]
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
Notes Big Dave explains "Two difficulty ratings today. The first is for those, like me, who sail through Ray T’s puzzles and the second is for those that struggle. Either way, the enjoyment level is the same."

Introduction

It seems that I stumbled over a couple of mole hills today (17a and 24a). However, the correct solutions were easily found with the help of my electronic assistants.

With regard to the former clue, I incorrectly convinced myself that it must begin with SWINES (from "pig's"). Thus, after adding taking the other checking letters into consideration, the clue would be of the form SWINESE_D. The only letter that I could imagine filling in the blank would be an 'N'. Unfortunately, none of the dictionaries appear to have seen fit to include that word in their listings.

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 Solutions:

H² - abbreviation [1^st entry] hard (used in describing grades of pencil lead): a 2H pencil

telephonist - [Collins English Dictionary] noun British a person who operates a telephone switchboard. Also called (especially US) telephone operator

Signing off for today - Falcon