Monday, January 11, 2010 (DT 26041)

This puzzle was originally published Wednesday, September 23, 2009 in The Daily Telegraph

Introduction

This started out to be a very quick solve. It was not a case of the clues being overly simplistic, as I thought some of them were really quite clever. I just seemed to be on the same wavelength as the setter, and the answers to seemingly quite difficult clues were coming without much effort. Things changed when I got down to the last couple of clues. It seemed like I spent as much time on 24d as I did on all the rest of the puzzle. However, I did feel a real sense of accomplishment when I finished the puzzle.

Today's Glossary

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

Crufts - a dog show held annually in Birmingham, England; declared by Guinness World Records to be the largest annual dog show in the world

Horizon - a long-running BBC television documentary programme

hum - verb 4 Brit. informal smell unpleasant

MOT - noun (in the UK) a compulsory annual test of motor vehicles of more than a specified age (ORIGIN abbreviation of Ministry of Transport)

sell - verb 7 (sell out) betray (someone) for one’s own financial or material benefit

shop - verb 3 informal, chiefly Brit. inform on

Today's Links

Tilsit's review of today's puzzle may be found at Big Dave's Telegraph Crossword Blog [DT 26041].

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

10a Dog breed I re-enter, becoming excited with a second in Crufts (8,7)

Knowing that Crufts is a dog show is important to the surface reading, but is of little consequence to the cryptic reading. I was able to solve the clue while (mistakingly) supposing that Crufts might possibly be a town or city in Scotland. I initially thought the answer might be Scottish Terrier, but later determined that it is ABERDEEN TERRIER (supposedly another name for the same breed of dog, commonly also called a Scottie). After reading the the commentary on Big Dave's site, I didn't feel at all badly about never having heard of an Aberdeen Terrier.

1d Maintains shellfish get caught in current? On the contrary (6)

Here we see a structure that setters employ from time to time. The setter wants to create a container type clue in which I (the electrical symbol for current) is contained (caught) in CLAMS (shellfish). However, in terms of the surface reading, "current gets caught in shellfish" does not make much sense - or, certainly, less sense than "shellfish get caught in current". Therefore, the setter states the wordplay in the manner that best suits the surface reading, then adds the phrase "on the contrary" to indicate that the wordplay must be reversed.

24d Hum start of melody in shop (5)

This was the second last clue to be solved. "Shop" in this clue means sell, but neither word is used in the sense that would be most likely to come to mind. After considerable searching, I discovered that shop is British slang meaning to inform on (someone); or, in other words, to sell (betray) someone. In North America, I think one would probably be more likely to hear the term sell out rather than sell in this context. Judging by the comments on Big Dave's blog, it seems that this meaning for shop baffled many Brits, so it may not be that common a term, even in Britain (and, to the best of my knowledge, is unknown in North America). The clue was made even more difficult by the fact that hum also takes a meaning totally foreign to North Americans.

In a strange coincidence, I found that the solution to the last remaining clue (27a), SPLITS, can also mean to betray or inform on (split - verb 5 (split on) Brit. informal betray the secrets of or inform on). I also recall that grass is British slang having a similar meaning (grass - verb 2 (often grass on) Brit. informal inform the police of someone’s criminal activity or plans). One would almost be tempted to think that the British have as many words for betrayal as the Inuit have for snow.

Signing off for today - Falcon