Tuesday, July 23, 2013 — DT 27165

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27165
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Setter Unknown
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27165]
Big Dave's Review Written By Deep Threat
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
Notes The National Post has skipped DT 27164 which was published in The Daily Telegraph on Monday, April 29, 2013.

Introduction

Skipping over the Monday puzzle from Rufus, the editors at the National Post have got us back to a "Tuesday on Tuesday" position. Today's offering from a mystery setter is certainly not overly difficult — and will be a treat for those who like to feast on anagrams.

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

1a   Heads of Daily Telegraph maintaining weird stain's removed (7)

The Daily Telegraph^[7] is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper, founded in 1855 as The Daily Telegraph and Courier, which is published in London and distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. It also happens to be the source of this puzzle.

5a   Company almost attempted to restrict European exclusive circle (7)

9a   Peaceful? Turning better if I start to complain (7)

Deep Threat appears to have overlooked one element of the charade. The wordplay should be "A charade of a verb meaning ‘to better’ reversed (turning), IF (from the clue), [I (from the clue)] and the initial letter of C omplain.".

10a   Let everyone be indebted to daughter (7)

11a   Baby plants bit of dad's heather with twigs around the outside (9)

Ling^[5] is the common heather (Calluna vulgaris), a purple-flowered Eurasian heath that grows abundantly on moorland and heathland.

12a   Hatred from goblin right away (5)

13a   Gallery frames second choice (5)

The Tate Gallery^[5] (commonly known simply as the Tate) is a national museum of art in London, England founded in 1897 by the sugar manufacturer Sir Henry Tate (1819 – 1899) 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.

15a   Cops and Morse drunk, getting Brahms and Liszt? (9)

Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse was the central character in the British detective drama television series, Inspector Morse^[7]. The series, based on a series of novels by English crime writer Colin Dexter, ran for seven seasons from 1987 to 1993 (with 5 follow-on specials).

In British slang, Brahms and Liszt^[5] means drunk (rhyming slang for 'pissed').

Johannes Brahms^[5] (1833 – 1897) was a German composer and pianist. He eschewed programme music and opera and concentrated on traditional forms. He composed four symphonies, four concertos, chamber and piano music, choral works including the German Requiem (1857–68), and nearly 200 songs.

Franz Liszt^[5] (1811 – 1886) was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He was a key figure in the romantic movement; many of his piano compositions combine lyricism with great technical complexity, while his twelve symphonic poems (1848–58) created a new musical form.

17a   Disorderly Irish soldier (9)

19a   Dead  reserved (5)

22a   Ready to follow the French language (5)

In French, the feminine singular form of the definite article is la^[8].

Ready^[5] (also readies or the ready) is British slang for available money or cash. Tin^[5] is dated British slang for money ⇒ Kim’s only in it for the tin.

23a   Some feel a Borat episode's complicated and confusing (9)

Borat's Television Programme^[7] is a two-part compilation spin-off of Da Ali G Show by British television station Channel 4. The show originally ran in 2004, predating by two years the subsequent movie Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The show features Borat Sagdiyev (played by English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen) in the United States learning about the local culture and customs, much in the vein of the later movie. The two episodes contain Borat and Brüno segments from Ali G in da USA, along with new and unseen interviews and shenanigans.

25a   Ecstasy left me in hospital department getting oxygen, say? (7)

E^[5] is an abbreviation for the drug Ecstasy or a tablet of Ecstasy ⇒ (i) people have died after taking E; (ii) being busted with three Es can lead to stiff penalties.

One would almost suspect that the only functioning area of the Crosswordland Hospital is the ear, nose and throat (ENT^[2]) department. 

26a   One runs about spilling gin -- it's a job for the housekeeper? (7)

27a   Meet, perhaps, without shaking fist (7)

28a   Determined to get money and set off (7)

Down

1d   Dose working with pet at first, before it's put down (7)

2d   Cusses terribly about Conservative victory (7)

3d   Permissible to remove large pants (5)

In Britain, pants^[5] is an informal expression meaning rubbish or nonsense ⇒ he thought we were going to be absolute pants. Here, I believe that "be pants" (or "be rubbish") would be interpreted in the sense of 'perform poorly' — i.e., 'be awful'.

4d   Specialist catch with line at sea (9)

5d   Man's  leggings (5)

To say that these leggings "sound sound like a synonym of Man’s" is perhaps to draw a very fine distinction — if one ignores the apostrophe, the two words are spelled identically.

6d   Criminal who stalks -- they'll be seen on television (4,5)

7d   Farmer finally runs with it inside sheep pen again (7)

8d   Perennial Dawson maybe planted in borders (7)

Les Dawson^[7] (1934 – 1993) was an English comedian and writer remembered for his deadpan style, curmudgeonly persona and jokes about his mother-in-law and wife.

The wordplay — which, for some reason, poses a concern for Deep Threat — is LES (Dawson, maybe) contained in (planted in) ENDS (borders).

14d   Plots in Greene's novel (9)

Graham Greene^[5] (1904 – 1991) was an English novelist. The moral paradoxes he saw in his Roman Catholic faith underlie much of his work. Notable works: Brighton Rock (1938), The Power and the Glory (1940), and The Third Man (written as a screenplay, and filmed in 1949; novel 1950).

16d   Soldier on ship eating fish spread (9)

The Royal Marines (RM)^[5] is a British armed service (part of the Royal Navy) that was founded in 1664, and trained for service at sea, or on land under specific circumstances.

17d   Tablet has no power with head ailment (7)

Usually found in place names, ness^[5] means a headland or promontory ⇒ Orford Ness.

18d   Go back and give someone another drink? (7)

20d   Fancy Head of Intelligence cracked Enigma (7)

An Enigma machine^[7] was any of a family of related electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines used for the encryption and decryption of secret messages. Enigma was invented by the German engineer Arthur Scherbius at the end of World War I. The early models were used commercially from the early 1920s, and adopted by military and government services of several countries — most notably by Nazi Germany before and during World War II. Several different Enigma models were produced, but the German military models are the ones most commonly discussed.

21d   What ships hold English in fear? (7)

23d   Guard not opening mouth (5)

24d   Old, grim smell (5)

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