Wednesday, May 15, 2013 — DT 27114

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27114
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Friday, March 3, 2013
Setter Giovanni (Don Manley)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27114]
Big Dave's Review Written By Gazza
BD Rating
Difficulty - ★★	Enjoyment - ★★★★
Falcon's Experience ┌────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┐ ███████████████████████████████████ └────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┘ 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

This puzzle was completed in two sittings. At the end of the first session, two clues (15a and 21a) remained unsolved. Perhaps the period of cogitation helped, but the second session also required a great deal of effort before the penny dropped. I swear that I spent nearly as much time on these two clues as on the rest of the puzzle combined.

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.

Across Clues

1a   Remaining message offering no hope to political radicals? (4,4)

9a   Notice the male member of the family hugging one to establish bond (8)

10a   Leader of Parliament involved in evil massaging of PR (4)

11a   Hiram's nephew worked somewhere in America (3,9)

13a   Looks at lumps of mineral? Ugly things (8)

15a   Course taken by a bishop outside our own country (6)

16a   River invading our allotment (4)

The Ural River^[5] is a river, 1,575 miles (2,534 km) long, that rises at the southern end of the Ural Mountains in western Russia and flows through western Kazakhstan to the Caspian Sea at Atyraū.

In Britain, an allotment^[5] is a plot of land rented by an individual for growing vegetables or flowers. In North America, such a piece of land would be called an allotment garden. I have found that it is a common practice in British English to use an adjective as a noun in place of the noun it modifies. Thus allotment garden becomes allotment, estate car (station wagon) becomes estate, and Indian restaurant becomes Indian (see 5d).

17a   What doesn't sound like amateur's writing (5)

... it sounds like pro's.

18a   Grainy stuff stained regularly (4)

20a   Tom noticed you, as some might say (6)

Tom Sawyer^[7] is the title character of the Mark Twain novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). He also appears in three other novels by Twain: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894), and Tom Sawyer, Detective (1896) as well as in at least three unfinished Twain works, Huck and Tom Among the Indians, Schoolhouse Hill, and Tom Sawyer's Conspiracy, which were posthumously published. Mark Twain^[7] was the pen name of American author and humorist Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835 – 1910).

21a   Quiet pig tucking into something chewy -- nothing for one dog here! (8)

"Old Mother Hubbard"^[7] is an English language nursery rhyme, first printed in 1805.

23a   Huge limo's not a car for manoeuvring (12)

26a   After party starts to seek some sleep (4)

Doss^[5] is British slang meaning (as a verb) to sleep in rough accommodation or on an improvised bed ⇒ he dossed down on a friend’s floor or (as a noun) an instance of sleeping in rough accommodation or on an improvised bed.

27a   Lacking vitality, like the disorganised supermarket visitor? (8)

28a   Lesson resorting to ritual (8)

Down Clues

2d   Politician (look you!) may be ensnared by top woman boss (8)

In many Commonwealth countries (including Britain and Canada), a member of the House of Commons or similar legislative body is known as a Member of Parliament^[10] (or MP^[5] for short).

Lo^[5] is an archaic exclamation used to draw attention to an interesting or amazing event ⇒ and lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them.

Ye^[5], an archaic or dialect second person pronoun, is the plural form of thou ⇒ gather ye rosebuds, while ye may.

The history of the use of ye is complex. In the earliest period it was used only as the plural subjective form. In the 13th century it came to be used in the singular, equivalent to thou. In the 15th century, when you had become the dominant subjective form, ye came to be used as an objective singular and plural (equivalent to thee and you). Various uses survive in modern dialects.

By tradition, the ciphers (monograms) of British monarchs are initials formed from the Latin version of their first name followed by either Rex or Regina (Latin for king or queen, respectively). Thus the cipher of Queen Elizabeth is ER^[5] — from the Latin Elizabetha Regina.

3d   Court entertainer? (6,6)

4d   One who sees six sheep north of river (6)

5d   Leading Indian's almost shut up (4)

In historical terms, a raja^[5] was an Indian king or prince. During the British Raj, it became a
a title extended to minor dignitaries and nobles in India.

In the surface reading, the word "Indian" would likely be interpreted as 'Indian restaurant' by British readers (see discussion at 16a).

6d   Fellow on board has time possibly to seize power (8)

This "fellow on board" is not a chess piece.

7d   Sound equipment taken out of church if irritating (2-2)

8d   Meant to get one series of books finished (8)

In Crosswordland, "books" is often used to clue either the Old Testament (OT) or the New Testament (NT).

12d   The woman crossing a road should beware of traffic stopped here! (4,8)

In British English, a hard shoulder^[5] is a hardened strip alongside a motorway [controlled access, multi-lane divided highway] for stopping on in an emergency.

In North America, it seems that we have 'soft shoulders' (freshly laid gravel beside a highway that has not yet been compacted) but not 'hard shoulders'. In North America, the later would be called a 'paved shoulder'. I suspect that Brits might interpret a 'paved shoulder' to be made of paving stones rather than asphalt.

14d   Rod, almost entirely without love and showing little emotion (5)

In tennis, squash, and some other sports, love^[5] is a score of zero or nil ⇒ love fifteen. The resemblance of a zero written as a numeral (0) to the letter O leads to the cryptic crossword convention of the word "love" being used to clue this letter.

16d   Outside front of shop is a foreign item of furniture liable to collapse (8)

In French, un^[8] is the masculine singular form of the indefinite article [clued by "a foreign"].

17d   Pile for burning noticed up in the mountains (8)

The Pyrenees^[5] is a range of mountains extending along the border between France and Spain from the Atlantic coast to the Mediterranean. Its highest peak is the Pico de Aneto in northern Spain, which rises to a height of 3,404 m (11,168 ft).

19d   Another's swimming in European water (5,3)

The North Sea^[5] is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean lying between the mainland of Europe and the coast of Britain, important for its oil and gas deposits. [I would hazard to guess that there might be some fish there also.]

22d   Belly full of cake, not a little pouch (6)

24d   After beginning of term request something to be done (4)

25d   Big road coming on to little one -- potential hazard for motorist? (4)

The M1^[7] is a north–south motorway [controlled access, multi-lane divided highway] in England connecting London to Leeds.

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)
^[11] - TheFreeDictionary.com (Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary)

Signing off for today — Falcon