Friday, October 16, 2009 (DT 25944)

This puzzle was originally published Tuesday, June 2, 2009 in The Daily Telegraph

Introduction

I spent a brisk autumn day doing yard work preparing for the rapidly approaching winter - and envying Gazza "sitting in the garden with a long cool drink on a hot Summer’s day".

Although overall I found today's puzzle to be about average in terms of difficulty, I was forced to rely on Gazza for the solution to one clue. Interestingly, the comments on Big Dave's Blog indicate that many of the Brits found this puzzle to be rather difficult.

For some reason, the National Post has skipped over Puzzle DT 25943.

Today's Glossary

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

clerihew - a particular style of short comic verse; named after Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956), the English writer who invented it

clock - (verb, defn. 3) Brit. see (therefore, notice) or watch

gen - Brit. information

greatcoat - Brit. a heavy overcoat

pedalo - a small pedal-operated pleasure boat

River Lee - a river in Ireland, flowing through Cork

Today's Links

Gazza's review of today's puzzle may be found at Big Dave's Telegraph Crossword Blog [DT 25944].

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

1a Italian artist enters picture that's dull (7)

The Italian artist is ROSA, but is it Francesco Rosa or Salvator Rosa? Judging by their respective Wikipedia entries, Salvator would appear to be the better known of the two.

15d Bentley's characterful lines (9)

This is the clue that I was not able to crack. However, in hindsight, it is clear that it should have been solvable as a search for words matching the checking letters returns only three or four candidates.

23d Handy shot for scorer - one who's celebrated this week? (5)

In this case a "scorer" is someone who writes scores; in other words, a composer. The composer of interest is Joseph Haydn who died on May 31, 1809. This puzzle would have appeared in the Daily Telegraph during the week marking the 200th Anniversary of his death.

Signing off for today - Falcon