Tuesday, July 15, 2014 — DT 27428

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27428
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Setter Unknown
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27428]
Big Dave's Crossword Blog 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 █ - 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
Notes
The National Post has skipped DT 27427 which was published in The Daily Telegraph on Monday, March 3, 2014.

Introduction

While not an overly difficult puzzle today, I did manage a couple of stumbles.

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.

Primary indications (definitions) are marked with a solid underline in the clue; subsidiary indications (be they wordplay or other) are marked with a dashed underline in all-in-one (& lit.) clues, semi-all-in-one (semi-& lit.) clues and cryptic definitions.

Across

7a   Hurricane series being shown inside (7)

8a   Copper strangled by a fat round count (7)

The symbol for the chemical element copper is Cu^[5] (from Latin cuprum).

Count Dracula^[7] is the title character and primary antagonist of the 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula by Irish writer Bram Stoker (1847–1912).

10a   Bird in brass -- a lot manufactured (9)

An albatross^[5] is a very large, chiefly white oceanic bird with long, narrow wings, found mainly in the southern oceans.

11a   Love game analysed, last of a series (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.

Omega^[5] is the last letter of the Greek alphabet (Ω, ω).

12a   Gong bringing first of diners into dinner, perhaps (5)

Gong^[5] is an informal British term for a medal or award.

13a   Pride, say, shown by unerring opener for Surrey, batting (6,3)

The surface reading relates to cricket where an opener^[5] is a batsman who opens the batting and Surrey refers to the Surrey County Cricket Club^[7], one of the 18 professional county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure.

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

In cricket, a player who is batting is said to be in^[5]. Conversely, a player who is fielding is said to be out^[5]. 

In Christian tradition, the sins of pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth are known as the seven deadly sins^[5].

15a   Two ways of viewing something that invigorates? (7)

17a   Try to attract volunteers over first (7)

In the UK, the Territorial Army (TA)^[5] is a volunteer force locally organized to provide a reserve of trained and disciplined manpower for use in an emergency.

18a   Character cutting could be a cheat (4-5)

20a   Spoil church procession (5)

21a   Relief comes as swelling reduced round middle section of hock (5)

In Britain, a locum^[5] is a person who stands in temporarily for someone else of the same profession, especially a cleric or doctor.

23a   Correspondence after series identifying armour (5,4)

Chain mail^[5] is flexible armour consisting of small metal rings linked together. It goes without saying that this is not at all the same thing as chain letters!

24a   Seen and understood (5,2)

25a   Onset of whooping in sickly bird (7)

Down

1d   Underwater swimmer drives excitedly across Caribbean island (5,5)

2d   Crowd going to the Spanish lodging house (6)

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

3d   Judge first half of recipe book (8)

Historically, in Britain, a Recorder^[5] was a judge in certain courts. Today the term is used in England and Wales for a barrister appointed to serve as a part-time judge.

4d   Rum does when served up -- and port (6)

Rum^[5] is a dated informal British term meaning odd or peculiar ⇒ it’s a rum business, certainly.

Odessa^[5] is a city and port on the south coast of Ukraine, on the Black Sea; population 1,008,600 (est. 2009).

5d   Awful long wait for sleeping car (5-3)

A wagon-lit^[5] [French, from wagon 'railway coach' + lit 'bed'] is a sleeping car on a continental railway.

6d   First to recognise a French character from the past (4)

In French, the feminine singular form of the indefinite article is une^[8].

A rune^[5] is a letter of an ancient Germanic alphabet, related to the Roman alphabet.

7d   Church member allowed to keep pair, and article worn on the wrist (5,8)

9d   What stealing a fluid is? (7,3,3)

14d   Gymnastic feat in heyday heard by experienced sailor on radio (10)

16d   Purchase not fashionable, a robe (8)

I failed to recognize "not" as a deletion indicator.

17d   Review a penny parking increase (8)

In Britain's current decimal currency system, a penny^[5] is a bronze coin and monetary unit equal to one hundredth of a pound (and is abbreviated p).

19d   Going up a track (6)

I was definitely on the wrong "track" here — I kept thinking of a track on a phonograph record or at a sports stadium.

20d   Guide worked with hands (6)

22d   Form of fuel used in Morocco -- kerosene (4)

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