Monday, October 29, 2012 - DT 26944

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26944
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Setter Unknown
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26944]
Big Dave's Review Written By Pommers
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

Today's puzzle was not overly difficult but still managed to be very enjoyable.

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   Working lunches with a macabre sort of lawyer (9-6)

There is agreement among most British dictionaries that the solution to this clue is either "US slang" (Chambers 21st Century Dictionary^[2] and Collins^[10]) or "derogatory, chiefly North American" (Oxford^[5]). They also unanimously concur that there is no hyphen in the word. The Chambers Dictionary, 11th Edition, on the other hand, spells the term with a hyphen and also lists two senses of the term, only one of which it characterizes as being US:

ambulance-chaser n a lawyer on the lookout for accidents in order to instigate actions for damages (US); a person or firm offering to pursue a claim on behalf of an accident victim in return for a percentage of the sum obtained.^[1]

9a   Seldom encountered by British, Italian cheese dish (7)

Rarebit^[5] (also called Welsh rabbit) is a dish of melted and seasoned cheese on toast, sometimes with other ingredients. I interpret the wordplay to be RARE (seldom encountered) + (by) B (British) + IT (Italian); however, one could also possibly make a case for RARE (seldom) + (encountered by) B (British) + IT (Italian).

10a   Mutter curiously about piano and something to play (7)

Piano^[3,5] (abbreviation p^[5]), is a musical direction meaning either soft or quiet (as an adjective) or softly or quietly (as an adverb).

13a   Escape of water from a lake, unfortunately, by outskirts of Grasmere (7)

Grasmere^[7] is a village, and popular tourist destination, in the centre of the English Lake District. It takes its name from the adjacent lake, and is associated with the Lake Poets. The poet William Wordsworth, who lived in Grasmere for fourteen years, described it as "the loveliest spot that man hath ever found".

17a   Saying name of dog, perhaps held by lead (7)

In the surface reading, lead^[3,4] is another name for a leash. In the cryptic reading, however, it is a chemical element having the symbol Pb^[5].

21a   Change flag once fellow leaves (5)

F^[2] is the abbreviation for Fellow (of a society, etc).

23a   Main place for the rest of the natives? (6-3)

With a few checking letters in place, I recognized that the second part of the solution was likely to be BED (place for rest) and "main" surely pointed to something having to do with the sea. However, I didn't twig to the meaning of "natives" (a usage I've encountered in at least one previous puzzle) until I saw OYSTER in a list of candidate words produced by a word finder program. In the UK, a native^[5] is an oyster reared in British waters.

25a   In conflict with commander this month (7)

Instant^[5] is a dated expression used in formal correspondence to indicate 'of the present month'. It is a postpositive adjective (i.e., it follows the noun it modifies) and almost always appears as an abbreviation (inst). Thus, one might write "In reference to your letter of the 7th inst ...".

26a   Put rings round the lines for play’s hero (7)

Othello^[7],  the title character in Shakespeare's Othello (c.1601–1604), ...

27a   Play’s hero overcome? Not he, if composed (3,4,2,6)

... is a Moorish prince living in Venice, an ambassador of the Moors.

2d   A gem of a girl? (5)

Pommers and I both seem to have been distracted by the wrong girls — while he was pursuing Ruby, I was chasing Pearl. I could boast that the object of my attention at least had the correct number of letters, but that only meant that it took me much longer to realize that I was after the wrong lass.

4d   Hazel, for example, one who’s crazy over old actor (3-4)

Fortunately, it was quite easy to decipher the solution to this clue without ever having heard of the English actor and theatre manager, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1852 – 1917)^[7].

7d   Comic-strip character, perhaps getting petrol on her overalls initially (9)

I expect that it is generally well known to North American readers that petrol^[5] is the British term for gasoline^[5]. Super^[10] is petrol with a high octane rating (known in North America as premium or high-test gasoline).

8d   Train always holding one up (7)

I determined the correct solution fairly readily based on the definition, but needed a nudge from Pommers to see the wordplay which is a reversal (up) of {EER (always; contraction of ever) containing (holding) UNIT (one)}.

17d   Rustic worker after vegetables (7)

Don't be misled by Pommer's hint. The definition is merely "rustic" and not "rustic worker" making the solution, PEASANT, an adjective rather than a noun.

19d   Gradually disappear in route through mountains on holiday (4,3)

In what may possibly be a British turn of phrase, pass off^[10] can mean to come to a gradual end or disappear ⇒ eventually the pain passed off.

20d   Youngster in Po Delta, swimming? (7)

The Po^[7] is a river that arises in the Cottian Alps and flows eastward across northern Italy entering the Adriatic Sea through a delta near Venice. If you are puzzled by Pommers' comment ("At least I didn’t have to remember where the Po is – sorry gnomey!"), Gnomethang (one of the contributors to Big Dave's Crossword Blog) once identified the Po as being a Chinese river — and his fellow bloggers have never allowed him to live it down.

24d   Little time in Indonesian island for a British-style type of curry (5)

The dictionaries^[2,5,10] are divided on both where this dish originated as well as on the origin of the name. A Balti^[7] is a type of curry served in a thin, pressed steel wok-like "balti bowl" which is served in many restaurants in the United Kingdom. The precise origins of the Balti style of cooking are uncertain; some believe it to have been invented in Birmingham, England while others believe it originated in the northern Pakistani region of Baltistan in Kashmir from where it spread to Britain.
Balti cuisine became known throughout the UK during the 1990s, after initial growth in Birmingham since the 1980s. One school of thought states that name 'Balti' for food may reflect the fact that an ethnic group living in that area of north Pakistan are called Balti. Alternatively, 'Balti' food may be named after the pot in which it is cooked (whose name may have come from an Urdu and Hindi word meaning "bucket").

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