Monday, January 4, 2010 (DT 26035)

This puzzle was originally published Wednesday, September 16, 2009 in The Daily Telegraph

Introduction

I probably found today's puzzle a bit more difficult than the Brits due to the generous number of references to cricket and British geography. Tilsit's review carried a bit of an edge - perhaps a bit has rubbed off on me.

Today's Glossary

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

bairn - noun chiefly Scottish & N. English a child

extra - noun 5 cricket a run scored other than by hitting the ball with the bat

Herts - abbreviation Hertfordshire: a county in England

M - abbreviation maiden: noun 3 (also maiden over) Cricket an over in which no runs are scored

over - noun, cricket 1 a series of six (or formerly in Australia eight) balls bowled by the same bowler from the same end of the pitch 2 play during such a series of balls

Pinner - a suburb in the London Borough of Harrow in Greater London, England

Potters Bar - a town in Hertfordshire, England

River Usk - a river in Wales

spinner - noun 2 Cricket a bowler who is expert in spinning the ball

wide - noun (also wide ball) Cricket a ball that is judged to be too wide of the stumps for the batsman to play

Today's Links

Tilsit's review of today's puzzle may be found at Big Dave's Telegraph Crossword Blog [DT 26035].

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

14a Affinity in harbour after strike (7)

Tilsit comments "“In” here has no obvious use except to make the clue read nicely." However, in my (albeit limited) experience, I can recall seeing this sort of construct frequently where the clue takes the form "definition in wordplay" (as here) or its converse, "wordplay in definition". I assume that the word "in" plays the role of a linking word, similar to the way the word "is" may be used in some clues. In either case, the setter is saying that the wordplay is equivalent to the definition (or vice versa).

From a mathematical perspective, the concept of "in" being the same as "is" is quite normal. In set theory, a set A is contained in a second set B if all the elements in set A are also present in set B. For A to be in B, B can have more elements than A, but it cannot have fewer. If both sets have precisely the same elements, then A is in B, B is in A, and A=B.

21a A wide, perhaps, in over (5)

This clue is pretty well incomprehensible without at least a rudimentary knowledge of cricket. I admit that I am far from an expert in this field, but I will attempt a basic explanation. I am sure if I have screwed up too badly, we will hear about it from our British colleagues.

An over is a division of play in cricket, consisting of "a series of six balls bowled by the same bowler from the same end of the pitch". A wide is a ball bowled in such a manner that it is "judged to be too wide of the stumps for the batsman to play". A wide is scored as an extra, "a run scored other than by hitting the ball with the bat". "When a wide is bowled, the batting team [is] awarded a run, which is tallied separately on the scorecard and does not count towards an individual batsman's score. Additionally, a wide is not counted as one of the six balls in the over and a replacement is bowled."

This is one of those clues that is hard to categorize. Tilsit describes it as a cryptic definition. However, as a pure cryptic definition, there seems to be little cryptic about it - aside from the prerequisite knowledge of cricket. I thought perhaps that it might actually be a double definition, with the first definition being "A wide, perhaps" as a wide is one of several types of extra in cricket and the second definition being "over", meaning extra in the plain vanilla non-cricket sense. However, the inclusion of the word "in" would seem to rule it out as a double definition, which I believe would need to be worded as "A wide, perhaps, over (5)" (I don't think one can have a linking word in a double definition - but I stand to be corrected).

The clue would actually seem to be of the form "wordplay in definition" (the converse of 14a discussed above), where the wordplay is "a wide, perhaps" and the definition is "over". Again, the wordplay would seem to be cryptic only to the extent that a knowledge of cricket is required.

26a Smuggled whisky? That's a foolish notion (9)

Tilsit writes "... should “whisky have had an “e” ..." (quoting a correspondent identified only as "a grumpy pedant"). This comment obviously arises from the fact that, in Ireland and the United States, whiskey is generally spelled with an "e", while in most of the rest of the world (including Scotland and Canada) whisky is spelled without an "e". Since "moonshine" is primarily an American term, consistency would seem to demand that whiskey be spelled with an "e" in the clue.

27a Bowler from South London borough (7)

I searched in vain for the London borough that is home to the cricket player in this clue. It seems that the community for which we are looking is not a borough in its own right, but rather a part of the Borough of Harrow (a point made also by a visitor to Big Dave's blog).

6d Where one can display a vice among company! (6)

Tilsit says that "This is one of those clues known as “&lit” where the whole clue defines the word required and provides the indications." While he is correct on the first part, I would beg to differ on the latter part. It seems to me that the "indications" are provided by simply "a vice among company". Therefore, due to the inclusion of the extra wording "Where one can display", I think that this has to be considered to be a cryptic definition and not an & lit. clue.

Signing off for today - Falcon