Wednesday, August 26, 2009 (DT 25902)

This puzzle was originally published Tuesday, April 14, 2009 in The Daily Telegraph

Introduction

Not a terribly difficult puzzle today, although it did have a fair number of Briticisms. I missed the wordplay on one clue.

Today's Glossary

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

A1 - the longest numbered road in the UK

Dunstable - a town in Bedfordshire, England

hock - Brit. any white Rhine wine (entry 2)

inset - an insert (noun, defn. 1)

prefect - Brit. a senior pupil authorized to enforce discipline in a school (I remember this term from Carrie Anne by The Hollies)

RE - abbrev. (The Corps of) Royal Engineers: a corps of the British Army

RV - abbrev. (English) Revised Version: a late 19th-century British revision of the King James Version of the Bible

TA - abbrev. Territorial Army: in the UK, a volunteer force providing back-up to the regular army in cases of emergency

Taunton - the county town of Somerset, England

Today's Links

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

Gazza's review of today's puzzle may be found at Big Dave's Telegraph Crossword Blog [DT 25902].

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

12ac Thoroughly popular department in front of hospital (2, 5)

In his review, Gazza suggests that the "H" comes from "front of hospital". However, my interpretation was slightly different in that I assumed that "H" is just a short form for "hospital" (street signs with the letter "H" are commonly used in this part of Canada to identify the location of - and routes to - hospitals). In that case, "in front of" becomes merely a positional indicator showing "DEPT in front of H"

19ac Reckon wine in audience is for this purpose (2,3)

I easily got the correct solution from the phrase "for this purpose". However, I could not figure out the wordplay - failing to recognize the sounds like indicator (in audience). It didn't help that hock having the meaning used here is not in my vocabulary. I might hock something at a pawnbroker's shop to get enough money for some food (perhaps some pork hocks) - but I never realized that I could also wash them down with hock.

15d Published journalist trapping fool beaten for ingenuity (9)

As Gazza points out in his review, the solution is produced by combining three parts; namely, published → OUT, journalist → ED, and fool → TWIT with the indicator trapping showing that TWIT is somehow contained within the other parts. In a clue having this sort of construction, one would normally expect (at least I would) that TWIT is either contained between the two other parts (i.e., between OUT and ED) or is contained within the latter part mentioned (i.e., ED) which is adjacent to the containership indicator. However, in this case, TWIT is actually contained within the former part (i.e., OUT) which is not adjacent to the containership indicator. Perhaps this can be seen more clearly by parsing the clue:

15d Published [OU^T] journalist [ED] trapping fool [TWIT] /\ beaten for ingenuity [OU(TWIT)T|ED] (9)

Signing off for today - Falcon