Tuesday, February 11, 2014 — DT 27315

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27315
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Setter Unknown
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27315]
Big Dave's Crossword Blog 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 █ - solved but without fully parsing the clue █ - unsolved or incorrect prior to visiting Big Dave's Crossword Blog █ - solved with aid of checking letters provided by solutions from Big Dave's Crossword Blog █ - reviewed by Falcon for Big Dave's Crossword Blog █ - yet to be solved

Introduction

Deep Threat did not find the puzzle overly challenging. However, this puzzle will likely prove to be a bit more of a challenge for solvers on this side of the Atlantic. Fortunately, I was able to decipher several clues from the wordplay without having ever heard of the solutions. I suppose that is the hallmark of a good cryptic crossword clue.

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   Stint with Surrey's opener at crease (6)

Surrey^[5] is a county of southeast England; county town, Kingston upon Thames.

The surface reading is intended to evoke an image of a cricket match. Surrey County Cricket Club^[7] is one of the 18 professional county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Surrey. In cricket, an opener^[5] is a batsman who opens the batting. Since there are always two batsmen (one positioned at either end of the pitch), an opener is one of a pair of starting batsmen. A crease^[10] is any of three lines near each wicket marking positions for the bowler or batsman. Note that in cricket, a crease is a line, whereas in hockey or lacrosse, a crease is an area.

5a   Return in rally (8)

Return^[10] could be intended in the sense of a reply or response, especially a recriminatory one or, as Deep Threat suggests in his review, a return after an absence (for example, a hiatus from the stage or from a sports team). Unfortunately, the fact that return can also be a synonym for rally somewhat weakens this double definition.

9a   Manager is upset about side making attacks on reputation? (5,8)

10a   Is shy after misbehaving with proper tantrum (5,3)

Oxford Dictionaries Online characterises hissy fit^[3,5] as a North American expression, while The American Heritage Dictionary further narrows its scope to chiefly the Southern and South Midland US. I would say that the use of this term seems to have spread far beyond its original base.

11a   Departs on the Spanish train (6)

In Spanish, el^[8] is the masculine singular form of the definite article.

12a   Like Jack Dawkins in painting almost complete (6)

Jack Dawkins, better known as the Artful Dodger^[7], is a character in Oliver Twist., a novel by English author Charles Dickens (1812–1870).

14a   Safe after thrash in Welsh market town (8)

Peter^[5] is [seemingly British] slang for a safe, till, or cash box.

Lampeter^[7] is a town in Ceredigion, South West Wales, lying at the confluence of the River Teifi and the Afon Dulas. It is the third largest urban area in Ceredigion after Aberystwyth and Cardigan.

16a   Wheel in best English novelist (8)

Anthony Trollope^[5] (1815–1882) was an English novelist. He is best known for the six ‘Barsetshire’ novels, including Barchester Towers (1857), and for the six political ‘Palliser’ novels. He also worked for the General Post Office 1834–67 and introduced the pillar box to Britain.

Anthony was the third son of Frances Trollope^[7] (1779–1863), who herself was an English novelist. Her first son, Thomas Adolphus (1810–1892), also became a writer (of fiction, among other things). Frances Trollope should not be confused with her daughter-in-law Frances Eleanor Trollope (1835–1913), the second wife of Thomas Adolphus Trollope, and also a novelist.

Joanna Trollope^[7] is a British writer whose novel Parson Harding's Daughter won (in 1980) the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association.

19a   Bird fed chop and banger (6)

21a   When this is not shown, mother makes a complaint (6)

23a   Nobleman gloomy? A tea's the answer! (4,4)

An earl^[5] is a British nobleman ranking above a viscount and below a marquess.

The peerage^[7] [mentioned by Deep Threat in his review] refers to peers as a class — a peer^[5]being  a member of the nobility in Britain or Ireland, comprising the ranks of duke, marquess, earl, viscount, and baron

Grey is the British spelling of a colour associated with gloominess, while gray is the spelling of this color in the US. In Canada, the choice of spelling is a bit of a grey area (or, if you prefer, falls into a gray zone).

Earl Grey^[5] is a kind of China tea flavoured with bergamot. It was probably named after the 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) who was Prime Minister of the UK (1830-34). He was the grandfather of the 4th Earl Grey (1851-1917) who was Governor General of Canada (1904-11). The latter is probably best known today for having donated the Grey Cup, the trophy awarded to the winner of the Canadian Football League championship.

25a   Song and dance from eccentric (5,3,5)

Fortunately, I was able to decipher the solution from the wordplay as I had never heard this term.

Round the twist^[5] is is an informal British expression meaning out of one’s mind or crazy ⇒ the games she plays drive me round the twist. While this expression does not appear to be used in North America, we do use a similar one. The phrase round the bend^[5] (British) or, around the bend (US) has the same meaning. Again, I expect Canadians might use either version of the latter expression interchangeably.

26a   Parent mostly sad after favourite play (5,3)

Peter Pan^[7] is a play by Scottish dramatist J. M. Barrie (1860–1937). It tells the story of Peter Pan, a mischievous little boy who can fly, and his adventures on the island of Neverland with Wendy Darling and her brothers, the fairy Tinker Bell, the Lost Boys, the Indian princess Tiger Lily, and the pirate Captain Hook.

27a   What Rag and Tag do, but not Bobtail, for a finale (6)

Rag, Tag and Bobtail^[7] was a BBC children's television programme that ran from 1953 to 1965. The three main characters — Rag, a hedgehog; Tag, a mouse; and Bobtail, a rabbit — were glove puppets.

Down

2d   Discharge  treasurer? (7)

3d   Plans a side misconstrued (5)

4d   Poirot mistaken about most of people in case (9)

The people here are mere common folk, not the peers found in 23a.

Hercule Poirot^[7] is a fictional Belgian detective, created by English crime writer Agatha Christie (1890–1976). Poirot is one of Christie's most famous and long-lived characters, appearing in 33 novels, one play (Black Coffee), and more than 50 short stories published between 1920 and 1975.

5d   Wild cat also seen from along the cliffs? (7)

6d   Bike in gym inside government office (5)

PE^[5] is the abbreviation for physical education (or Phys Ed, as it would likely be called by most school kids).

In the UK, MOD^[5] stands for Ministry of Defence.

7d   Prison source supports showing of 'Born Free' and Elsa, initially (9)

This is another instance where I successfully deciphered the wordplay without ever having heard of the solution.

Bridewell^[5] is an archaic [seemingly British] term for a prison or reform school for petty offenders. The name is taken from St Bride's Well in the City of London, near which such a building stood.

Born Free^[7] is a 1966 British drama film that recounts how Joy and George Adamson, a real-life couple, raised Elsa the Lioness, an orphaned lion cub, to adulthood, and released her into the wilderness of Kenya. The screenplay was based upon the 1960 non-fictional book Born Free written by Joy Adamson (1910–1980).

8d   Acknowledge set of rules involving New Church (7)

The Church of England^[10] (abbreviation CE^[10]) is the reformed established state Church in England, Catholic in order and basic doctrine, with the Sovereign as its temporal head.

13d   Comprehensive school group getting a rather good deal (4,5)

I solved this with one definition of house in mind, but then thought that I found a better one in perusing the dictionaries.

In Britain, each of a number of groups into which pupils at a day school are divided for games or competition is known as a house^[5].

However, Deep Threat offers the explanation that first occurred to me. A house^[10] is any of several divisions, especially residential, of a large school.

15d   Significant film has disheartened teenage girl leading march? (9)

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial^[7] (often referred to simply as E.T.) is a 1982 American science fiction film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg. It tells the story of a lonely boy who befriends an extraterrestrial, dubbed "E.T.", who is stranded on Earth. He and his siblings help the extraterrestrial return home while attempting to keep it hidden from their mother and the government.

17d   Book  put to one side (7)

18d   Butler's work, and some Moliere -- who next? (7)

And, once again, the wordplay leads to a previously unknown solution.

Samuel Butler^[7] (1835–1902) was an iconoclastic Victorian-era English author who published a variety of works. Two of his most famous pieces are the Utopian satire Erewhon and a semi-autobiographical novel published posthumously, The Way of All Flesh.

The novel Erewhon^[7] was published anonymously in 1872. The title is also the name of a fictional country, supposedly discovered by the protagonist. Butler meant the title to be read as the word Nowhere backwards, even though the letters "h" and "w" are transposed, therefore Erewhon is an anagram of nowhere. The book is a satire on Victorian society.

Molière^[5] (1622–1673) was a French dramatist; pseudonym of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin. He wrote more than twenty comic plays about contemporary France, developing stock characters from Italian commedia dell’arte. Notable works: Tartuffe (1664), Le Misanthrope (1666), and Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670).

20d   Quickly name English city (7)

In music, presto^[5] is a direction indicating that a piece of music is to be played in a very fast tempo, usually considered to be faster than allegro but slower than prestissimo.

Preston^[5] is a city in northwest England, the administrative centre of Lancashire, on the River Ribble; population 165,600 (est. 2009). It was the site in the 18th century of the first English cotton mills.

22d   Make sense of a theologian at college (3,2)

Doctor of Divinity^[7] (D.D. or DD, Divinitatis Doctor in Latin) is an advanced academic degree in divinity. Historically, it identified one who had been licensed by a university to teach Christian theology or related religious subjects. In the United Kingdom, Doctor of Divinity has traditionally been the highest doctorate granted by universities, usually conferred upon a religious scholar of standing and distinction. In the United States, the Doctor of Divinity is usually awarded as an honorary degree.

In Britain, up^[5] can mean at or to a university, especially Oxford or Cambridge ⇒ they were up at Cambridge about the same time.

24d   Laborious work, note, filling crossword diagram (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