Wednesday, July 4, 2012 - DT 26844

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26844
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, April 19, 2012
Setter Unknown
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26844]
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

As yesterday, I finished the puzzle feeling very pleased with myself only to discover that Big Dave's Crossword Blog had rated it as deserving only a single star for difficulty.

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.

10a   City left with nothing (5)

Porto^[7], also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal, after Lisbon, and one of the major urban areas in Southern Europe.

12a   Abode about to get sinkage (subscription cancelled) (9)

In Britain, sub^[5] is another name for a subscription • the annual sub for the golf club will be £200.

On a minor note, the word "signage" in Big Dave's hint is obviously a typo (it should read "sinkage").

18a   Fashionable gallery incorporating largely well-funded complex (9)

The Tate Gallery^[5] (or simply the Tate) is a national museum of art at Millbank, London, founded in 1897 by the sugar manufacturer Sir Henry Tate (1819–99) to house his collection of modern British paintings, as a nucleus for a permanent national collection of modern art. It was renamed Tate Britain in 2000, when the new Tate Modern gallery opened.

Lord Sugar^[7] (to whom Big Dave refers in his review) is Alan Sugar, a British business magnate, media personality, and political advisor. From humble origins in the East End of London, Sugar now has an estimated fortune of £770m (US$1.14 billion) and was ranked 89th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2011.Sugar is also notable for his time as chairman of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club from 1991 to 2001. Sugar appears in the BBC TV series The Apprentice, which has been broadcast annually since 2005 and is based upon the popular U.S. television show of the same name, featuring the American entrepreneur Donald Trump.

20a   Digital sketch? (9)

Big Dave suggests that this is a "not very cryptic definition". The clue is based on a digit^[5] being either a finger or thumb.

26a   Some tableware? I’ve rest ordered with note (9)

Te^[5] is the British spelling of the seventh note of a major scale in tonic sol-fa.

1d   Criminal activity shown by a male in posh car with support (3-4)

In Britain, a robbery in which a shop window is rammed with a vehicle and looted is known as a ram raid^[5]. The vehicle involved is not likely to be a Rolls-Royce (RR)^[5], a luxury car produced by the British Rolls-Royce company.

2d   Illness troubled girl around university (5)

Lurgi^[2] (an alternative spelling of lurgy) is a British term which originally meant a highly infectious non-specific disease • caught the dreaded lurgy. In the present day, it can mean (1) any illness that is not very serious • There's a 'flu lurgy going about or (2) anything that can be perceived as a scourge or burden • that dreaded lurgy, marijuana.

The Goons (mentioned by Big Dave) is almost certainly a reference to The Goon Show^[7], a British radio comedy programme broadcast by the BBC from 1951 to 1960. The show's chief creator and main writer was Spike Milligan. The cast consisted of Milligan together with Michael Bentine (for the first two years of the series), Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers.

7d   Sailor, six-footer, with tricky haul ignoring hot venomous type (9)

An ant^[7] is an insect having six legs (and, consequently, six feet). The use of "six-footer" to clue ANT is a well-used cryptic crossword cliché.

21d   Stick in message from cricket captain refusing to declare? (5)

This clue requires one to have some knowledge of how cricket^[7] is played. In cricket, the objective of each team is to score more runs than the other team. In Test cricket (a match between national teams), it is necessary to score the most runs and dismiss the opposition twice in order to win the match, which would otherwise be drawn. Therefore, the captain of a batting team which has built up a large lead may declare the innings closed prematurely in order to allow the opposition to bat (and thus gain an opportunity to dismiss them). As a captain, the key to victory is picking the right time to declare. Declare too early and the other team may score more runs than your team has amassed and thereby defeat you. Declare too late and the match may end before your team can dismiss the other team (resulting in a draw, even though your team may have a substantial lead in runs). The alternative to declaring the innings closed is to "bat on".

22d   Line followed by legendary vessel in a slow movement (5)

In music, largo^[5] is used as an adverb or adjective to mean (especially as a direction) in a slow tempo and dignified in style. As a noun, it denotes a passage, movement, or composition marked to be performed in this way.

In Greek mythology, the Argo^[7] was the ship on which Jason and the Argonauts sailed from Iolcos to retrieve the Golden Fleece. It was named after its builder, Argus.

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