Wednesday, November 14, 2012 - DT 26958

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26958
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, August 30, 2012
Setter RayT (Ray Terrell)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26958]
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

I wrote this review after I had already solved tomorrow's puzzle, so I have to take care to avoid mixing up the two puzzles. I needed help from my electronic assistants on a couple of clues, although it is difficult to understand why I should have needed aid on those clues as (in hindsight) they seem to be no more challenging than many others in the puzzle.

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   Style the rear in operation here, perhaps (6,6)

This is a semi & lit. clue — or, as Big Dave prefers to call it, a semi all-in-one clue. The entire clue serves as the definition, while a portion of the clue constitutes the wordplay.

 Harley Street^[7] is a street in the City of Westminster in London, England which has been noted since the 19th century for its large number of private specialists in medicine and surgery.

8a   City of Gold, region found by Pizarro finally (7)

Francisco Pizarro^[7] (c. 1471 or 1476 – 1541) was a Spanish conquistador who conquered the Inca Empire. As far as I could determine, he never visited Florida — let alone Orlando. Instead, his time in the New World was spent in Central and South America.

Or^[5] is gold or yellow, as a heraldic tincture. In heraldry, a tincture^[5] is any of the conventional colours (including the metals and stains, and often the furs) used in coats of arms.

9a   Farms managed tailless game (7)

While sufficient for the purposes of a hint for this clue, the distinction between ranches and farms is a bit more subtle than ranches being merely "American cattle farms" (as Pommers puts it). Whether a property is considered a ranch or a farm depends — among other things — on its size, the type of agricultural operation carried out there, its general geographic location, and local linguistic custom. [read more]

11a   Painter's painter bound to flip about height (7)

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (1483 – 1520), better known simply as Raphael^[7], was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. Together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period.

 A Royal Academician (abbreviation RA^[5]) is a member of the Royal Academy of the Arts^[5], an institution established in London in 1768, whose purpose is to cultivate painting, sculpture, and architecture in Britain.

12a   Cheese plant? (7)

Primula^[7] is a brand name for a range of food products marketed by a Norwegian company, Kavli. Primula Cheese Spread was invented in 1924 by Norwegian Olav Kavli. Primula Cheese was the world's first spreadable cheese with a long shelf life and was named after the Primula flower. It was first introduced into the UK in 1929. Primula Cheese is sold in a squeezable tube.

13a   Origins of Hell and damnation eternal, say (5)

In Greek mythology, Hades^[5] is the underworld — the land of the spirits of the dead. It is also used informally as a synonym (or euphemism) for hell.

19a   Bird chasing the French label (5)

The wordplay is TIT (bird) + (chasing) LE (the French). Pommers opines "To me the word ‘chasing’ should indicate after, not before." — and that would be the natural (and incorrect) way to read the clue. Two things I have learned about cryptic crossword clues are (1) the natural reading is not always the correct reading, and (2) one must sometimes ignore the punctuation that the setter provides and other times insert punctuation that the setter omits. Today, we have the latter case. For cryptic purposes, we must read the clue as "Bird; chasing the French" which I like to call a recipe type clue because it provides a series of steps we must follow. The first part of the solution is TIT (bird); the second step tells us that following (chasing) is LE (the French).

The British name for a chickadee is tit^[5] (or titmouse). Le^[8] is the masculine singular form of the French definite article.

21a   Fat girl stuck in a position ... (7)

From its frequent appearance, Di would certainly seem to be the most popular girl's name in Crosswordland. The ellipsis at the end of this clue (together with the one at the beginning of the next clue) merely serves to indicate that the surface reading carries across the two clues. From a cryptic standpoint, the clues are independent.

24a   One puts up with English clergyman (7)

A vicar and a rector are both members of the clergy. In the Church of England, a vicar^[5] is an incumbent of a parish where tithes formerly passed to a chapter or religious house or layman. This is in contrast to a rector^[5], who is the incumbent of a parish where all tithes formerly passed to the incumbent. These terms have somewhat different meanings in other religious denominations.

25a   Note, one relating to large amount (7)

As Pommers indicates, bill^[5] is a North American term for a banknote ⇒ a ten-dollar bill. However, the Brits do seem to have adopted the American definition of billion^[5] as being a thousand million (10⁹) in lieu of their former definition of a million million (10¹²).

26a   Bird's mostly pert, naughtily holding ends of robe (6,6)

Stormy petrel^[5] is a dated term for storm petrel^[5], a small seabird of the open ocean, typically having blackish plumage and a white rump, and formerly believed to be a harbinger of bad weather. Another meaning for stormy petrel is a person who delights in conflict or attracts controversy. In the surface reading of the clue, bird^[5] is undoubtedly used in the British slang sense of a young woman or a man’s girlfriend.

1d   Where choppers stack up, kept outside (7)

While I thought that entire clue might have been intended to be the definition (making it a semi all-in-one clue), Pommers considers the definition to be merely "where choppers" — with, presumably, an implicit "are found" appended
.
The wordplay is HAD (kept) containing (outside) a reversal (up; in a down clue) of PILE (stack). Note that the setter has reversed the order of the components of the wordplay, creating a 'recipe type' clue somewhat similar to 19a — although there is some helpful punctuation contained in this clue that was not present in the earlier one.

It took me a while to come to the realization that "kept" was standing in for HAD and not HELD.

2d   Trails fugitives free from America (7)

A runway^[5] is an animal run, especially one made by small mammals in grass, under snow, etc.

5d   Position of Queen, a piece capturing knight (7)

R^[5] is the abbreviation for Regina or Rex (Latin for queen or king, respectively).

6d   Tire or tyre? (No, another part of car) (7)

Tyre^[5] is the British spelling of tire (in the sense of an automobile part).

7d   Press forwards on park, taking on United (6,6)

The fourth estate^[10] is a term for journalists or their profession, i.e., the press. An estate^[5] (also called estate of the realm) a class or order regarded as forming part of the body politic, in particular (in Britain), one of the three groups (known as the three estates) constituting Parliament, now the Lords spiritual (the heads of the Church), the Lords temporal (the peerage), and the Commons.

I believe that the term "fourth estate" is not meant to indicate that journalists are "fourth" in order of precedence, but that the print media forms a fourth order in addition to the three that had been previously recognized. The name of the CBC public affairs program The Fifth Estate^[7] alludes to the idea that electronic journalism constitutes yet another order in the body politic.

"United" is almost certainly a reference to the Manchester United Football Club^[7] (often referred to as simply United), an English professional football [soccer] club, based at Old Trafford [football stadium] in Old Trafford [district of Manchester], Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League (the top level in the English football league system).

20d   Small getting six in Test (7)

A Test (short for Test match)^[5] is an international cricket or rugby match, typically one of a series, played between teams representing two different countries ⇒ the Test match between Pakistan and the West Indies.

The surface reading almost certainly has a sporting connotation. In cricket, a hit that travels in the air beyond the boundary of the playing area scores six runs. Of course, a cricket player could amass six runs in other ways as well. Or, perhaps, Small is a bowler and he got six batsmen out. Then, again, he may be a rugby player.

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