Friday, July 3, 2009 (DT 25864)

This puzzle was originally published Saturday, February 28, 2009 in The Daily Telegraph

Introduction

Although a moderately easy puzzle, I managed to make a few mistakes. I suppose that the upside to having the wrong solution is that it provides justification for not understanding the wordplay :-)

Today's Glossary

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

affection - Pathol. a disease, or the condition of being diseased (defn. 3)

Alph River - a river in Antarctica (named for a fictional river in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem, Kubla Khan)

Rab - a Scottish version of the name Robert; for instance, Scottish footballer Rab Douglas - hopefully not yet another totally obscure player :-)

Today's Links

Characterising the blogs: AnswerBank is primarily a forum where users share solutions to specific clues and only infrequently is there any significant discussion regarding the puzzle. Cryptics.co.uk strives to provide a complete solution to the puzzle and fairly often will have a limited amount of discussion concerning the puzzle. Big Dave's Telegraph Crossword Blog provides extensive hints, a full set of solutions, and detailed explanations of difficult solutions with ongoing discussion amongst regulars and visitors pertaining to the puzzle.

It being a Saturday prize puzzle in the UK, I was not surprised to find some eighteen questions on AnswerBank discussing today's puzzle. Due to the large number, I have provided a link to a Google search which picked up most of the questions:

AnswerBank [DT 25864]-a:

I have provided direct links for three questions missed by the above search. They (together with the clues to which they relate) are:

AnswerBank [DT 25864]-b: 1ac

AnswerBank [DT 25864]-c: 29ac

AnswerBank [DT 25864]-d: 22d

It was interesting to learn that apparently the French receive the puzzle a week in advance of the British (on one occasion, at least) through an international weekly edition of the Telegraph. So, it seems the French are given a one week head start while we, in Canada, are subjected to a four month penalty :-)

Today we get an advance indication that another Daily Telegraph blog that I have followed in the past, Cryptics.co.uk, is about to be reactivated - albeit briefly.

You can find Big Dave's date-of-publication hints for today's puzzle at Big Dave's Telegraph Crossword Blog [DT 25864]-Hints and Peter Biddlecombe's post-submission-date review at Big Dave's Telegraph Crossword Blog [DT 25864]-Review.

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

1ac Dared to remove second half of outlet (4)

To quote Peter Biddlecombe, "these 'half of something' clues can be hard to crack", but I thought I may have succeeded - although I wasn't able to completely nail the wordplay. It turns out I was incorrect in thinking that the solution was LEST, even though removing second (S) produced "half of outlet". I searched in vain for some way to make LEST mean "dared".

21ac Extremely upset it had been dashed to pieces (9)

Although I arrived at the correct solution, I never figured out the wordplay for this clue. Like Big Dave, I recognized that "Almost every word in this clue smacks of crossword construct". Unlike him, however, I never saw past that ruse.

14d Disease destroyed loving (12)

Another correct solution with no idea of the wordplay - having never before encountered the word "affection" as a disease (other than in the case of the proverbial lovesick teenager).

17d Service chief? (4,6)

I wrongly opted for HEAD MASTER although this left me very perplexed regarding the wordplay. However, it seems I was in good company - eh, Peter!

Signing off for today - Falcon