Wednesday, September 5, 2012 - DT 26898

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26898
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, June 21, 2012
Setter Ray T (Ray Terrell)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26898]
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

Big Dave rates this puzzle as leaning toward the more difficult end of the scale — and my experience would seem to bear that out. I read through the entire list of across clues without obtaining a single solution. I thought the situation was looking up when I was able to solve the first two down clues on first reading — but then things bogged down again. With about six clues solved, I stared at the puzzle for a seeming eternity without making any progress. Then the penny dropped on one clue and the rest fell like dominoes.

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.

1a   Grannie, a nan possibly old inside? (12)

This is an & lit.^[7] (or all-in-one) clue. The entire clue provides the definition and, read another way, serves as the wordplay.

8a   Inception filming location (5)

Judging by Big Dave's blog, the word "Inception" was enclosed in single quotation marks when this clue appeared in the UK. Inception^[7] is a 2010 science fiction/action heist film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. "On set" could mean filming location as a response to the question "Where are you filming today?"

9a   Put up again in bedroom, perhaps (9)

I was a bit puzzled by the solution to this clue, but put it down to some hitherto unknown idiosyncrasy of British English. However, maybe not, as Big Dave says that he "thought the clue was a bit weak".

16a   He makes interest, saving endless readies initially (5)

Readies^[5] (or the ready) is British slang for available money or cash.

18a   Bond feature with adult content (5)

Similar to the case in 8a, the word "Bond" was enclosed in single quotation marks in Britain — presumably to suggest fictional secret agent James Bond^[7]. A (Adult)^[10] is a former British film certification category^[70] (discontinued in 1982, being replaced by the PG rating) denoting a film certified for viewing by anyone, but which contains material that some parents may not wish their children to see.

22a   Scot free, the man with bizarre character outside (9)

A Hebridean^[10] is is a native or inhabitant of the Hebrides^[5], a group of about 500 islands off the NW coast of Scotland.

14d   ’Little Boy’? No, a smaller, older explosive device (9)

For some reason, the quotation marks in this clue survived the trip across the Atlantic.

"Little Boy" was the codename for the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets of the 393rd Bombardment Squadron, Heavy, of the United States Army Air Forces. It was the first atomic bomb to be used as a weapon. The second, the "Fat Man", was dropped three days later on Nagasaki.

The definition is "explosive device". The clever wordplay tells us that the solution is a charade of a word meaning smaller than little (MINUTE, as an adjective) followed by a person who is older than a boy (MAN).

The Minuteman is a U.S. nuclear missile, a land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) which was put into service in 1962 — and is, in reality, neither smaller nor older than 'Little Boy'.

15d    Nabokov’s first with the empty novel Lolita (9)

Lolita has been stripped naked, having lost the quotation marks she was wearing in Britain. A nymphette or nymphet^[1] (most dictionaries give only the later spelling) is a sexually attractive and precocious young girl. A Lolita^[10] is a sexually precocious young girl — the term coming from the title character in Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita (1955).

17d   Secure rubbish in excess ends up here? (9)

Rot^[5] is a chiefly British term meaning nonsense or rubbish^[5] (absurd, nonsensical, or worthless talk or ideas) • don’t talk rot.

23d   Thank Queen covering live opening … (5)

Good Queen Bess is one of several names by which Elizabeth I of England^[7] is known.

24d   … keen on catching Queen opening (5)

R is the abbreviation for Regina (Queen) or Rex (King) and is used following the name a British monarch ⇒ Elizabeth R.

The pair of ellipses creating a link between 23d and 24d serve no real purpose from a cryptic perspective as the clues stand on their own. In the surface reading, they suggest that the two clues be read together to form a single sentence. Also it draws attention to the rather clever way the setter has used many of the same words to produce quite different outcomes in the two clues.

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