Wednesday, September 2, 2009 (DT 25910)

This puzzle was originally published Thursday, April 23, 2009 in The Daily Telegraph

Introduction

I thought that today's puzzle was a reasonable challenge - not terribly difficult but just difficult enough to give one a sense of satisfaction to have succeeded in solving it. Nevertheless, the Brits seem to have found it exceptionally easy for the most part.

I swear that I detected strains of music in the salt air, with 4d, 7d, and 16d having a musical theme and 11ac, 18ac and 15d displaying a nautical flavour.

Today's Glossary

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

Auntie - Brit. informal the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

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 25910].

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

21ac A tyrant needs to look after the lower socio-economic groups (6)

Luckily the solution to this clue was fairly obvious without needing a knowledge of socio-economic theory. In fact, a rather cursory search turned up information on a fair number of socio-economic class models - none of them having an A, B, C, D, E structure.

14d Policeman gets errant criminal as colleague (9)

Since most dictionaries seem to define "copartner" as "partner", the first syllable would almost appear to be redundant. It is sort of like saying "an expectant pregnant woman".

Signing off for today - Falcon