Wednesday, April 4, 2012 -DT 26766

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26766
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, January 19, 2012
Setter Ray T
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26766]
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 █ - solved with aid of checking letters provided by puzzle solving tools █ - unsolved or incorrect prior to visiting Big Dave's blog █ - reviewed by Falcon for Big Dave's blog

Introduction

Ray T offers up a fairly gentle challenge today.

Notes on Today's Puzzle

This commentary is intended to serve as a supplement to the review of this puzzle found at Big Dave's Crossword Blog, to which a link is provided in the table above.

9a   Submarine’s left following protective coat (9)

Underseal^[5] is a British term meaning (1), as a verb, to coat (the underpart of a motor vehicle) with waterproof material as protection against rust or (2), as a noun, a waterproof coating used as protection against rust. The North American equivalent is undercoat^[3,4].

10a   Grand bits of fluff giving flash (5)

Grand^[5] is an informal term for a thousand dollars or pounds • he gets thirty-five grand a year. While this definition would suggest that the term is known on both sides of the Atlantic, Oxford says that the abbreviation (G^[5]) is a North American usage • I was up nine Gs on the blackjack tables.

11a   Foreign Office? (6)

To understand the surface reading of the clue, one needs to know that, in Britain, the Foreign Office^[5] (short for Foreign and Commonwealth Office^[5]) is the British government department dealing with foreign affairs.

13a   Draw out girl, endlessly motionless (6)

Distil^[3,4,5] is the British spelling of distill.

23a   ’Amigo’ advanced to eat the Spanish dish (6)

The Spanish words for 'the' and 'friend' are el^[8] and amigo^[8] respectively.

1d   Delved into prize sack (7)

The surface reading may allude to some sort of game of  chance in which prizes are drawn from a sack. In a previous puzzle, we have encountered a British game called lucky dip^[2] in which participants are given a chance to rummage around in a tub or container full of shredded paper, sawdust, etc in which prizes have been hidden, and to draw out a prize at random.

3d   Story of right rotter invading innocent (9)

Rotter^[5] is an informal, dated British term for a cruel, mean, or unkind person • Rosemary had decided that all men were rotters.

4d   Place for smallest room, some say (4)

Loo^[5] is a British word for what North Americans would call a bathroom. In North America, somewhat bizarrely, a bathroom^[5] is a room containing a washbasin and a toilet (which may or may not also contain a bathtub or shower). In Britain, a bathroom is — more logically, I must admit — a room with a bath (which may or may not also contain a washbasin and a toilet).

8d   Stone a criminal in foreign prison facility (6)

A stone (abbreviation st)^[5] is a British unit of weight equal to 14 lb (6.35 kg) • I weighed 10 stone. In British slang, a lag^[5] is a person who has been frequently convicted and sent to prison • both old lags were sentenced to ten years' imprisonment.

14d   Puts a lid on drinks? (8)

I was sure that the solution to this clue was going to be a word meaning "puts" that was a charade of words meaning "a lid" and "drinks" (where the drinks might have been either ADES or ALES). I could hardly have been more wrong.

17d   Keep Under Pressure backing Queen on song (8)

In the UK, it would appear that this clue appeared — at least in the online version — with "Under Pressure" enclosed by single quotation marks:

• 17d   Keep ‘Under Pressure’ backing Queen on song (8)

"Under Pressure"^[7] is a 1981 song recorded by Queen and David Bowie, featured on Queen's 1982 album Hot Space. The song reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart. It was also number 31 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the '80s. The song was played live at every Queen concert between 1982–1986.

18d   Bottle shown by tart possessing ‘oomph’ (6)

The Brits would no doubt have seen bottle^[5] in the surface reading as referring to the courage or confidence needed to do something difficult or dangerous • I lost my bottle completely and ran.

20d   Place motor by front of Triumph Acclaim (7)

The Triumph Acclaim^[7] was a front-wheel drive medium-sized family car made by British Leyland (BL) from 1981 to 1984. It was based on the Honda Ballade and used a Honda-designed engine, but met United Kingdom component-content requirements. It was the final model of the Triumph marque.

24d   Hard in diet to get supple (5)

H^[5] is the abbreviation for hard, as used in describing grades of pencil lead • a 2H pencil.

Key to Reference Sources: 

^[1]   - The Chambers Dictionary, 11th Edition
^[2]   - Search Chambers - (Chambers 21st Century Dictionary)
^[3]   - TheFreeDictionary.com (American Heritage Dictionary)
^[4]   - TheFreeDictionary.com (Collins English Dictionary)
^[5]   - Oxford Dictionaries (Oxford Dictionary of English)
^[6]   - Oxford Dictionaries (Oxford American Dictionary)
^[7]   - Wikipedia
^[8]   - Reverso Online Dictionary (Collins French-English Dictionary)
^[9]   - Infoplease (Random House Unabridged Dictionary)
^[10] - CollinsDictionary.com (Collins English Dictionary)

Signing off for today - Falcon