Tuesday, August 11, 2009 (DT 25891)

This puzzle was originally published Wednesday, April 1, 2009 in The Daily Telegraph

Introduction

A fairly easy puzzle today. I got off to a flying start and had the right-hand side of completed in record-setting time (by my standards). The left-hand side, however, proved a bit more of a challenge - with a couple of wrong turns holding me up for a bit.

Today's Glossary

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

River Exe - a river in England

Today's Links

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

Big Dave's review of today's puzzle may be found at Big Dave's Telegraph Crossword Blog [DT 25891].

My answer to the questions posed by Big Dave is yes to both. As for 7d, it helps being from a generation where I saw the movie on its original theatrical release!

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

21ac Mouthpiece for musical instrument (5)

I initially found myself in the wrong section of the orchestra, having selected a BUGLE - guessing that "bugle" might possibly be a slang expression for, say, spokesperson (mouthpiece). After all, The Daily Bugle is a fictional New York City newspaper featured in a number of Marvel Comics - most notably Spiderman. However, it didn't take too long to discover that this was not the right solution (and a look at a couple of dictionaries seemingly disproved my guess about a possible slang meaning for bugle). Nevertheless, this attempt may not have been too far fetched, as one of the elements that Big Dave bases his solution on is that "... mouthpiece refers to a newspaper ...".

1d A lanky Scot's running, no matter what the consequences may be (2,3,5)

I saw right away that this was likely an anagram, but I made the mistake of trying to anagram the entire phrase "a lanky scot" or "lanky scot's" or some variation thereof, which might produce an solution along the lines of "AT ANY _____" or "IN ANY _____". Eventually, the checking letters put me back on the right path.

Signing off for today - Falcon