Monday, August 3, 2009 (DT 25885)

This puzzle was originally published Wednesday, March 25, 2009 in The Daily Telegraph

Introduction

I completed this puzzle successfully, although the upper left-hand corner required considerable effort. I was also quite perplexed by the wordplay in one clue - only to discover that there was an error in the clue as published in the National Post.

Today's Glossary

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

DPhil - Brit. Doctor of Philosophy

Today's Links

I found no questions on AnswerBank discussing today's puzzle.

Libellule's review of today's puzzle may be found at Big Dave's Telegraph Crossword Blog [DT 25885].

Error in Today's Puzzle

Clue 28ac was published incorrectly in the National Post as:

28ac One supposedly intelligent working on Dr. Phil (7)

The correct clue as shown on Big Dave's Blog is:

28ac One supposedly intelligent working on DPhil (7)

For readers in North America, DPhil is an abbreviation for Doctor of Philosophy. Personally, I am more familiar with PhD, but DPhil seems to be used more commonly in Britain.

In case readers in the UK are unfamiliar with Dr. Phil, it is a US television talk show hosted by clinical psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw. One might charitably describe it as an amalgam of the Oprah Winfrey and Jerry Springer shows. His guests are people with severe psychological problems to whom he purports to provide treatment. However, in reality, the show would appear to be the 21st century equivalent of a 1930's circus freak show.

Based on this description, it is easy to see that the surface reading of the clue as published in the National Post makes a great deal of sense. Of course, I struggled in vain trying to find something in the wordplay to account for deletion of the extra "R".

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

9ac Telephone message is unmanned, we hear (5)

I must admit that the setter caught me on this one. Despite seeing VOICE as the only possible solution, I was not able to figure out the wordplay. Kudos to libellule for his explanation.

18ac Stock in branch sent off for orders (12)

I thought RANGE was a poor synonym for "stock". To me, stock is just the goods on hand - regardless of its quantity or diversity. Range would indicate the diversity of the goods - and would merely be one of many attributes that could be used to describe the stock (range of stock, quantity of stock, quality of stock, etc.).

3d Functions carried out by bones? (10)

To elaborate on libellule's commentary, "Bones" was the nickname of Dr. Leonard McCoy (a character in the Star Trek television series). It is a shortened form of "sawbones", a common epithet for doctors (at least in American westerns). It would seem that amputation must have been a common solution to medical conditions in the Old West.

8d Old poet almost held us in excitement (8)

I'm afraid that I'm going to have to quibble with libellule's analysis of the solution to this clue. I respectfully submit that the clue does not call for US to be reversed and placed in front of the truncated poet (SPENSE). Rather the clue indicates that US is contained by SPENSE. A complete parsing the clue produces:

8d {Old poet almost (truncation indicator) [S^PENSE]} {held (containment indicator) US} /in\ excitement [S(US)PENSE] (8)

Signing off for today - Falcon