Friday, July 17, 2009 (DT 25874)

This puzzle was originally published Thursday, March 12, 2009 in The Daily Telegraph

Introduction

I found today's puzzle, with its tricky wordplay, to be a bit more difficult than those of the last few days. Although it was initially hard to find a starting point, once I did, I made steady - though rather slow - progress through three quarters of the puzzle. However, the bottom right-hand corner proved especially obstinate - but eventually fell to my attack. Despite having found the correct solution, I was unable to decipher the wordplay for one clue - but I do have somewhat of an excuse, if not justification, for that failure.

Once again, my assessment of the degree of difficulty is totally at variance with the opinion of the Brits.

Today's Glossary

Some possibly unfamiliar abbreviations, people, places, words and expressions used in today's puzzle

aquavit - a strong clear Scandinavian liquor

do - slang to cheat or swindle (verb trans., defn. 12)

Kensington - a district of West London, England

league - a former measure of distance by land, usually about three miles

Ken Livingstone - British politician (not Scottish medical missionary David Livingstone, who first came to mind)

MB - abbrev. Bachelor of Medicine (defn. 1)

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov - Nobel prize winning Russian physiologist

pavlova - a dessert consisting of meringue topped with fruit and whipped cream

Anna Pavlova - Russian ballet dancer

sea eel - the conger eel

third age - Brit. the period in life of active retirement, following middle age

Today's Links

I found five questions on AnswerBank discussing today's puzzle. They (together with the clues to which they relate) are:

• AnswerBank [DT 25874]-a: 8d, 15d
• AnswerBank [DT 25874]-b: 4d
• AnswerBank [DT 25874]-c: 13ac, 2d, 6d
• AnswerBank [DT 25874]-d: 11ac
• AnswerBank [DT 25874]-e: 9ac, 1d, 6d

Gazza's review of today's puzzle may be found at Big Dave's Telegraph Crossword Blog [DT 25874].

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

21ac Chicken for four - about a pint, initially (5)

This is the clue for which I was unable to figure out the wordplay. It turns out that there was a small but crucial difference between the clue published in the National Post and that shown on Big Dave's blog, which is:

21ac Chicken for 4 - about a pint, initially (5)

With the numeral in the clue, I recognized immediately that this is a cross-reference to clue 4d. The solution is then:

21ac Chicken [CAPON] /for\ 4 [C^ON] - about A {pint, initially [P]} (5)

where CON is a synonym for the solution to 4d (DIDDLE).

The contributors to Big Dave's blog usually rely on the online version of the puzzle, which has been known on occasion to differ from the version in the print edition of the Daily Telegraph. The version appearing in the National Post is usually identical to the version in the print edition of the DT. However, I can't be sure if this is the case with today's puzzle as there were no comments on the British blogs regarding any discrepancies between the online and print versions of the puzzle.

Peter Biddlecombe (xwd_fiend) has pointed out in a comment posted here some time ago that setters may sometimes cross-reference by word rather than number. Well, it has now happened and I still missed it - despite his warning.

Signing off for today - Falcon