Tuesday, January 9, 2018 — DT 28546

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 28546
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Saturday, September 30, 2017
Setter Mister Ron (Chris Lancaster)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 28546 – Hints] Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 28546 – Review]
Big Dave's Crossword Blog Review Written By Big Dave (Hints) gnomethang (Review)
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
As this was a Saturday "Prize Puzzle" in Britain, there are two entries related to it on Big Dave's Crossword Blog — the first, posted on the date of publication, contains hints for selected clues while the second is a full review issued following the entry deadline for the contest. The vast majority of reader comments will generally be found attached to the "hints" posting with a minimal number — if any — accompanying the full review.

Introduction

This puzzle was set by Mister Ron (Chris Lancaster) who goes  by the pseudonym Samuel when setting Toughie^* puzzles for The Daily Telegraph. As Big Dave reports in the thread at Comment #2 on Big Dave's Crossword Blog, "Samuel has just fessed up to this one on Facebook – he said 'it was only after solving a couple of clues that I realised it looked familiar …'". Seeing a comment like that makes me feel more comfortable about failing to immediately detect a puzzle that I have solved before (as sometimes happens when the National Post publishes a puzzle that I have previously reviewed on Big Dave's Crossword Blog).

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^* The Toughie is another cryptic crossword published in The Daily Telegraph which — as the name implies — is more difficult than the syndicated Cryptic Crossword that the National Post carries

Many of the Brits were getting their "flu jabs" on the day that this puzzle appeared in the UK. Don't get the impression that the flu shot is a major surgical procedure across the pond. Surgery^[5] is merely the British term for a doctor's office.

I invite you to leave a comment to let us know how you fared with the puzzle.

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 semi-all-in-one (semi-&lit.) clues. All-in-one (&lit.) clues and cryptic definitions are marked with a dotted underline. Explicit link words and phrases are enclosed in forward slashes (/link/) and implicit links are shown as double forward slashes (//).

Across

1a   Leaves with agreement, /offering/ comfort (3,3,8)

The phrase tea and sympathy^[5,10] denotes kind and attentive behaviour towards someone who is upset or in trouble ⇒ they need a plan of action rather than tea and sympathy.

Reading the tea leaves

One might suppose the expression "tea and sympathy" to be British. Although I did find it in two of my British dictionaries and in none of my American dictionaries, there was no explicit indication of it being a British usage. Tea and Sympathy is the title of a play by American playwright Robert Anderson (1917–2009) that opened on Broadway in 1953. Apparently the play was groundbreaking and controversial for its time. It is about a male private school student, Tom Lee, who faces accusations of homosexuality. A woman, Laura, who is married to an instructor, opposes the students' shaming of Lee and romantically pursues him so he can prove that he has a masculine character. Everett Evans of the Houston Chronicle called it "one of the first plays to tackle the then-taboo topic of sexual orientation and related prejudice." Evans stated that the play's final line, "Years from now, when you speak of this, and you will, be kind," is "one of the most quoted curtain lines in stage history". The play was adapted into a 1956 film. In 1956 Bob Thomas of the Associated Press wrote that "many said [the play] could never be made into a movie."

9a   Terrible uproar involving a male // lover (8)

10a   Bass, perhaps, ditching river /for/ burn (5)

Scratching the Surface
In the surface reading, the "bass" is a fish and a burn[5] is a small stream in Scottish and Northern English dialects.

12a   Unmatched son/'s/ chances (4)

13a   Hoses quietly away -- // it's an effect of the weather (10)

"quietly" = P (show explanation )

Piano^[3,5] (abbreviation p^[5]), is a musical direction meaning either (as an adjective) soft or quiet or (as an adverb) softly or quietly.

hide explanation

15a   Strange // start to burglary with no alarm going off outside (8)

16a   Keep transporting // box? (6)

18a   Warning // that's pointless? (3-3)

20a   Trader/'s/ harangue about church being led by this writer (8)

"this writer" = ME (show explanation )

It is a common cryptic crossword convention for the creator of the puzzle to use terms such as (the or this) compiler, (the or this) setter, (this) author, (this) writer, or this person to refer to himself or herself. To solve such a clue, one must generally substitute a first person pronoun (I or me) for whichever of these terms has been used in the clue.

hide explanation

23a   Study cafe and its cooking // to take away (10)

"study"= CON (show explanation )

Con^[5] is an archaic term meaning to study attentively or learn by heart (a piece of writing)  ⇒ the girls conned their pages with a great show of industry.

hide explanation

Scratching the Surface

Takeaway[5] is the British term for what North Americans would call takeout[5]: a restaurant or shop selling cooked food to be eaten elsewhere ⇒ (i) a fast-food takeaway; (ii) a takeaway pizza; a meal or dish bought from a shop or restaurant to be eaten elsewhere ⇒ (i) he phoned for a takeaway; (ii) he is happy to eat Chinese takeaway. In other words, takeaway could be described as "cooking to take away".

24a   5 ignoring the odds with zero // capital (4)

The numeral "5" is a cross reference indicator directing the solver to insert the solution to clue 5d in its place to complete the clue. The directional indicator is customarily omitted in situations such as this where only a single clue starts in the light^* that is being referenced.

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^* light-coloured cell in the grid

Oslo^[5] is the capital and chief port of Norway, on the south coast at the head of Oslofjord. Founded in the 11th century, it was known as Christiania (or Kristiania) from 1624 until 1924 in honour of Christian IV of Norway and Denmark (1577–1648).

26a   Newspaper article about a // steamy place (5)

The Sun^[7] is a daily tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and Ireland by a division of News UK, a wholly owned subsidiary of Australian-born American publisher and media entrepreneur Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

27a   Not licked, // like eggs before baking? (8)

28a   Where witness should sign? // That's putting it mildly (14)

Down

2d   A group playing /in/ desert (7)

3d   Close // new Listener (4)

Scratching the Surface
The Listener[7] was a weekly magazine established by the BBC in January 1929 which ceased publication in 1991.

4d   Secret tripper/'s/ pack? (8)

At Big Dave's Crossword Blog, both Big Dave and gnomethang interpreted "pack" as a verb — meaning that the solution has to be split (4,4) to match.

However, I interpreted "pack" to be a noun making the clue a double definition:

• Secret tripper/'s/ pack? (8)

Here a stowaway (or stowaway bag) would be a piece of carry-on luggage that will "fit under the seat in front of you or in the overhead bin" as the stewardess would say. I was surprised not to find this meaning of the word in any of the dictionaries that I consulted despite such items being widely available for purchase on the Internet. Granted, The Chambers Dictionary does come close, defining stowaway^[1] as an adjective used to describe something that can be packed up and stored, carried, etc.

5d   Endeavour initially lacking // bite (6)

Inspector Endeavour Morse^[7] is a fictional character in the eponymous series of detective novels by British author Colin Dexter (1930–2017), as well as the 33-episode British television drama series Inspector Morse^[7] produced between 1987 and 2000. Morse is a senior CID (Criminal Investigation Department) officer with the Thames Valley Police force in Oxford, England.

What did he say?

In his review on Big Dave's Crossword Blog, gnomethang writes Endeavour is the long-awaited revelation of the first name of Inspector MORSE. Morse[7] prefers to use only his surname, and is generally evasive when asked about his first name, sometimes joking that it is Inspector. At the end of Death Is Now My Neighbour*, it is revealed to be Endeavour. * this being the 12th of the 13 Inspector Morse novels written by Colin Dexter

6d   When drunk, can siestas // help? (10)

In his review, gnomethang classifies this clue as a "semi all-in-one" meaning that the entire clue is the definition. I don't see it that way. I think it is merely a clue with a very good surface reading and clear wordplay and definition.

7d   Somewhat foolish and outrageous // leaflet (7)

8d   Doctor stationed in // place at the end of one's road (11)

11d   Paint a fanciful picture /of/ creationism, possibly (11)

14d   Dissolute // don briefly left with one way out (10)

A don^[10] is a member of the teaching staff at a university or college, especially at Oxford or Cambridge.

17d   Backbone /shown in/ public going topless with European underwear (8)

19d   Write piece about the first figure in Ancient Rome -- // emperor, maybe (7)

Piece^[5] is an informal North American term for a firearm.

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The emperor penguin^[5] is the largest penguin, which has a yellow patch on each side of the head and rears its young during the Antarctic winter.

21d   Spartan // saint seen in gold before (7)

The symbol for the chemical element gold is Au^[5] (from Latin aurum).

Scratching the Surface

A Spartan[2] was a citizen or inhabitant of ancient Sparta*. Today, the term is applied to someone who is disciplined, courageous and shows great endurance. * Sparta[2,5], a city in the southern Peloponnese in Greece, was a powerful city state in the 5th century BC, defeating its rival Athens in the Peloponnesian War to become the leading city of Greece. The city was noted for its austerity and its citizens were characterized by their courage and endurance in battle and by the simplicity and brevity of their speech.

22d   Youngsters working for BP? (6)

In his hints, Big Dave comments "I hope I’ve missed something, if not this is a very poor clue". The misdirection here is that the setter expects us to think of the petroleum company not the founder of the scouting movement. If one fails to take the bait and avoids the trap, then it appears to be "a very poor clue". On the other hand, if like me, you fall for it hook, line, and sinker, it seems a rather good clue (after all, one would hardly want to be stymied by a "poor clue").

Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell of Gilwell^[5] (1857–1941) was an English soldier and founder of the Boy Scout movement. He became a national hero after his successful defence of Mafeking (1899–1900) in the Boer War. Baden-Powell, nicknamed B-P, was the author of Scouting for Boys which was an inspiration for the Scout Movement, founder and first Chief Scout of The Boy Scouts Association and co-founder (with his sister Agnes Baden-Powell) of the Girl Guides.

Scratching the Surface
BP P.L.C.*[7], also referred to by its former name, British Petroleum, is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. It is one of the world's seven oil and gas "supermajors". * The designation P.L.C. stands for Private Limited Company

25d   Food/'s/ beautiful, we hear (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)
^[12] - CollinsDictionary.com (Webster’s New World College Dictionary)
^[13] - MacmillanDictionary.com (Macmillan Dictionary)

Signing off for today — Falcon