Saturday, December 19, 2009 - Three Beers for Cheer

Introduction

In today's puzzle, Cox and Rathvon offer up not three cheers, but rather, three beers. While the puzzle generally exhibits these setters' typical careful handiwork, I do have to question the construction of clue 21d.

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

20a Cold bug comes with bend and jerk (9)

While I did not find any dictionary that actually listed "cold" as a definition for antarctic, it does not take much poetic licence to make the connection.

21d Monarch's chair tossed in the sound (6)

In the surface reading, sound is presumably used in the sense of "a narrow stretch of water forming an inlet or connecting two larger bodies of water". In the cryptic reading, the phrase "in the sound" is a homophone (sounds like) indicator, signifying that THROWN (tossed) sounds like THRONE (monarch's chair). However, the clue seems to have been constructed in reverse, as the clue would appear to produce the solution THRONE, whereas the grid demands the solution THROWN.

Monarch's chair [THRONE] /\ {tossed [THROWN] in the sound (sounds like)} = THRONE

In order to obtain the solution demanded by the grid, one must place the definition (tossed) in the middle of the wordplay (monarch's chair in the sound), which I would deem to be a clear violation of cryptic convention.

Solution to Today's Puzzle

Legend:	"CD" Cryptic Definition; "DD" Double Definition
	"*" anagram; "~" sounds like; "<" letters reversed
	"( )" letters inserted; "_" letters deleted

Across

7a BAR|GAIN S|ALE - BAR (tavern) GAINS (gets) ALE (beer)

8a _RO|C_ - hidden word (caged by) in afRO-Canadians

10a FAN|FARE - DD, with one being cryptic: FAN FARE (ballpark food)

11a TO|ASTER - TO ASTER (garden flower)

12a EDICT* - anagram (wrongly) of CITED

13a REM(A)INDER - REMINDER (mnemonic device) containing (about) A

14a HOT|EL| PORTER - HOT (warm) EL (the Spanish) PORTER (beer)

20a ANT|ARC|TIC - ANT (bug) plus (comes with) ARC (bend) and TIC (jerk)

23a S|AUDI - S (small) AUDI (German car)

24a MARIMBA* - anagram (playing) of RIB MAMA

25a AL(COHO)L - ALL (completely) containing (covering) COHO (kink of salmon)

26a NEW~ - sounds like (when read aloud) KNEW (understood)

27a SOCK|DO|LAGER - SOCK (cover for a club; i.e., golf club head cover) DO (party) LAGER (beer)

Down

1d BRAN|DISH - BRAN (cereal) DISH (bowl)

2d VA(CAN)T - CAN (small container) contained in (into) VAT (big container)

3d INTEGRAL* - anagram (reconfigured) of TRIANGLE

4d BAN|TAM - BAN (disallow) TAM (headwear)

5d ME(DALIS)T - MET (Metropolitan; the Metropolitan Museum of Art - which, in crosswords, may be the North American counterpart of the Tate) containing (houses) DALIS (surrealist's; Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali)

6d G|RATED - G RATED (for all viewers; G (General) is the North American film classification indicating suitability for audiences of all ages - equivalent to the British U (Universal) rating)

7d BUFFET - DD

9d CU|RARE - CU (chemical symbol for copper) RARE (very unusual)

15d TIRAMISU* - anagram (out) of I MUST AIR

16d OR|CHARDS - OR CHARDS (greens)

17d ROUG(HAG)E - HAG (witch) contained in (wearing) ROUGE (makeup)

18d M|ADMEN - M (One thousand; Roman numeral) ADMEN (guys making commercials)

19d P(ILL)AR - PAR (norm) contains (pens) ILL (bad)

21d THROWN - sounds like (in the sound) THRONE (monarch's chair) [see Commentary]

22d TRANCE* anagram (wrong) of NECTAR

23d S|ICILY - S (south) ICILY (coldly)

Signing off for today - Falcon