Wednesday, January 29, 2014 — DT 27305

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27305
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, October 10, 2013
Setter Unknown
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27305]
Big Dave's Crossword Blog Review Written By pommers
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 █ - solved but without being able to fully parse the clue █ - unsolved or incorrect prior to visiting Big Dave's blog █ - reviewed by Falcon for Big Dave's blog █ - yet to be solved

Introduction

I didn't find the puzzle to be as difficult as pommers' rating would have us believe. Nevertheless, it is a puzzle where I only found an entry through the down clues, after having read through the entire list of across clues without being able to solve a single one of them. From my perspective, I would award it three stars for difficulty as well as three stars for enjoyment.

I did recognize that the puzzle might be a pangram (one in which every letter of the alphabet appears at least once in the solutions to the clues). However, even with the knowledge that I was missing only a J and a Z, I still failed to solve 1a without a nudge from my electronic assistants.

As it turns out, the puzzle comes up one letter short of being a pangram (on Big Dave's blog, it is cheekily referred to as a pangra — almost a pangram). And I came up one clue short of finishing unassisted.

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. The underlined portion of the clue is the definition.

Across

1a   Seriously  funny remark (6,5)

This was my last one in, and I resorted to calling in my electronic assistants — perhaps prematurely.

9a   One leaving ring with a cut (5)

A quoit^[5] is a ring of iron, rope, or rubber thrown in the game of quoits to encircle or land as near as possible to an upright peg.

According to The American Heritage Dictionary^[3]:

The game quoits derives its name from quoit, specifically denoting a heavy iron ring slightly convex on the outside and concave inside, configured so as to give it an edge for cutting into the ground. Both the game and the term are associated almost exclusively with the Upper North (the northernmost tier of states from New York State westward to North Dakota). In fact, quoits is one of a dozen terms that are most reliable for delineating the Upper North dialect boundary.

10a   Boring outcome addled trio likes (3,6)

11a   Waiter is ace carving into joint before start of dinner (6,1)

12a   Crooked evil leer causing alarm (8)

14a   Deny detective's professional and extremely virile (8)

My thought was that to deny^[10] (to declare something to be untrue) is hardly the same thing as to disprove^[10] (to show something to be incorrect). However, The Chambers Dictionary tells us that disprove^[1] also has the archaic meaning of to disapprove (to reject).

A detective inspector (DI)^[5] is a senior police officer in the UK. Within the British police, inspector^[7] is the second supervisory rank. It is senior to that of sergeant, but junior to that of chief inspector. Plain-clothes detective inspectors are equal in rank to their uniformed counterparts, the prefix 'detective' identifying them as having been trained in criminal investigation and being part of or attached to their force's Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

15a   Nose wanting small change (4)

17a   Plane originally took off without Young Conservatives being mentally prepared (7)

The Young Conservatives^[7] was the youth wing of the United Kingdom's Conservative Party until the organisation was replaced in 1998 by Conservative Future.

19a   Display cheapish own-label bottles (4)

20a   No end to tacky books -- one with title (8)

The word "books" is often used to clue either the Old Testament (OT) or the New Testament (NT).

21a   Weather in east mild, not cold, with sun (8)

23a   Career on the line? (7)

A receptionist who values her career would quickly alert her boss that "The president is on the line".

25a   Disagreeable old boy's an infamous doctor with unknown debts (9)

In Britain, an old boy^[5] (abbreviation OB^[2])  is (1) a former male student of a school or college ⇒an old boy of Banbury County School or (2) a former male member of a sports team or company ⇒the White Hart Lane old boy squared the ball to present an easy chance from 12 yards. It is also a chiefly British affectionate form of address to a boy or man ⇒ ‘Look here, old boy,’ he said.

Dr. No^[7] is the sixth novel in the James Bond series by English author Ian Fleming (1908–1964), first published in the UK in 1958. Dr. No was the first of Fleming's novels to receive large-scale negative criticism in Britain, with Paul Johnson of the New Statesman writing his review about the "Sex, Snobbery and Sadism" of the story. When the book was released into the American market it was generally received more favourably. It was also the first James Bond feature film of the Eon Productions series, released in 1962 and starring Sean Connery.

In mathematics (algebra, in particular), an unknown^[10] is a variable, or the quantity it represents, the value of which is to be discovered by solving an equation ⇒ 3y = 4x + 5 is an equation in two unknowns. [Unknowns are typically represented symbolically by the letters x, y and z.]

26a   One following news covered by European outfit getting sense of weariness (5)

EU^[5] is the abbreviation for European Union. According to Oxford Dictionaries Online, N^[5] is an abbreviation (used chiefly in place names) meaning New ⇒ N Zealand. Therefore, if "new" is used to clue N, "news" could be used to clue NN — or any number of Ns, for that matter.

27a   Checked fine -- for a change it's a trifling sum of money (11)

Down

2d   Put off love going to French resort (2,3)

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.

Nice^[5] is a resort city on the French Riviera, near the border with Italy; population 348,721 (2007).

3d   Check pectin's set (7)

4d   Foolish spirit shown by Marines? Not so (8)

According to Oxford Dictionaries Online, go^[5] is a British term [although I would argue that the term is hardly exclusive to the UK] meaning spirit, animation, or energy ⇒ there’s no go in me at all these days.

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

5d   Notice that bloke in 'EastEnders' consuming endless cuppas (4)

An East Ender^[5,10] (or Eastender^[5]) is a native or inhabitant of the East End of London, an area whose residents are also referred to as cockneys. 

A cockney^[5] is a native of East London [specifically the East End], traditionally one born within hearing of Bow Bells (the bells of St Mary-le-Bow^[7] church). Cockney is also the name of the dialect or accent typical of cockneys, which is characterised by dropping H from the beginning of words and the use of rhyming slang^[5].

EastEnders^[7] is a British television soap opera which has been running in the United Kingdom since 1985. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End of London.

Cuppa^[3,4,11] is an informal British term for a cup of tea.

6d   Head of English came back prepared (8)

7d   Bad-tempered over money, or bread (9)

8d   Unusual demand shown for second-hand clothes (4-2-5)

12d   Sentenced again once verdict is challenged (11)

As an anagram indicator, I would say that challenged^[5] is used in the euphemistic sense indicating that someone suffers disability in a specified respect ⇒ my experience of being physically challenged.

The use with a preceding adverb (e.g. physically challenged), originally intended to give a more positive tone than terms such as disabled or handicapped, arose in the US in the 1980s and quickly spread to the UK and elsewhere. Despite the serious intention the term rapidly became stalled by uses whose intention was to make fun of the attempts at euphemism and whose tone was usually clearly ironic: examples include cerebrally challenged, conversationally challenged, and follicularly challenged.

13d   Train from Crewe finally expected, having squashed cat (7)

Crewe^[5] is a town and major railway junction in Cheshire, west central England; population 77,700 (est. 2009).

16d   Tender fish is tiddler (9)

The ling^[5] is any of a number of long-bodied edible marine fishes, in particular Molva molva, a large East Atlantic fish related to the cod.

Tiddler^[5] is a British term for (1) a small fish, especially a stickleback or minnow or (2) a young or unusually small person or thing ⇒ he was only a little tiddler, ten years old.

Nurseling^[5] is an archaic spelling of nursling^[5], a baby that is being breastfed.

17d   Rich as the Italian back in profit almost, going to clubs (8)

In Italian,  il^[8] is the masculine singular form of the definite article.

C^[1] is the abbreviation for clubs, a suit in a deck of cards.

18d   Eleven struggling to secure work -- one will get put in post (8)

In music, Op.^[5] (also op.) is an abbreviation meaning opus (work). It is used before a number given to each work of a particular composer, usually indicating the order of publication.

19d   Female figure performed repeatedly for lawman (7)

I did not know that, in music, a figure^[10] is a characteristic short pattern of notes.

22d   Sincere about source of contentment being peace (5)

24d   Desert with good bio-diversity (4)

The Gobi Desert^[5] is a barren plateau of southern Mongolia and northern China.

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