Friday, February 5, 2010 (DT 26064)

This puzzle was originally published Tuesdsay, October 20, 2009 in The Daily Telegraph

Introduction

Today's puzzle was average to above average in terms of difficulty, requiring me to dig into my Tool Chest quite early in the solving process. I finished suspecting that I may have missed nuances in the wordplay for a few clues.

Today's Glossary

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

notecase - noun a wallet.

pants - plural noun 1 Brit. underpants or knickers. 2 chiefly N. Amer. trousers. 3 Brit. informal rubbish; nonsense.

special - noun 2 a special person, such as a member of the special police constabulary • The specials were drafted in to control the fans.

Strand tube station - a subway station in London, England that is no longer in service

tuppence - noun Brit. 1 the sum of two pence, especially before decimalization (1971).

uni - noun informal university.

Today's Links

Gazza's review of today's puzzle may be found at Big Dave's Telegraph Crossword Blog [DT 26064].

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

11a Coat seen misshaped by a wallet (8)

In the U.K. where pieces of paper money are known as notes, it seems only natural that a wallet would be called a notecase. On the other hand, in North America, where pieces of paper money are called bills, the equivalent accessory is called a billfold.

12a Complete agreement on university issue (6)

The solution was quite evident from the definition and checking letters; the wordplay might have been easy if I had been familiar with uni as an informal term for university. I thought university might signify merely U. Issue is used in the sense of offspring.

27a Tube station to which the pressman was abandoned (8)

Strand tube station could refer to either of two subway stations in London, England - one of which has been abandoned and the other consolidated and renamed.

3d Compel firm to visit A&E, for example, and church (6)

Here A&E is not the North American cable specialty channel, Arts & Entertainment, but the British term for a hospital Emergency Room, namely the Accident and Emergency department.

4d Within reach entrance is bolted oddly (10)

We seem to encounter (or maybe not) a few rather odd anagram indicators in today's puzzle, but - strangely enough - oddly is not among them. Instead, oddly indicates that we are to take the odd letters of the words "is bolted". My downfall seems to have been thinking that I might have to take the odd letters of the entire phrase "entrance is bolted".

7d Beginning to develop "ants" as in "pants" (8)

Here is that odd anagram indicator that I mentioned in my commentary on 4d. It turns out that it may not be so odd after all. I had presumed that pants was being used in the sense of "gasps for breath" - which left me unsure of the rationale for it being used as an anagram indicator. However, pants can mean rubbish (nonsense) in Britain - something I only gleaned from a comment by a visitor to Big Dave's site.

By the way, pants in Britain are what we would call underpants and what we would call pants, would be known to them as trousers.

Originally, I had also thought that dressing in 23a might be a bit of an iffy choice for an anagram indicator, but on further checking realized that it can mean "decorate or arrange in an artistic or attractive way".

So I guess I must retract my statement in 4d about odd anagram indicators.

16d Made from, for example, seedless grapes whisked up (but not scrambled).

I thought that I must be missing some nuance in the wordplay for this clue. My interpretation was the same as Gazza's original take on it. However, a visitor to Big Dave's blog points out that we both missed that "seedless grapes" indicates that one is to remove "rape" from "grapes" to get GS. The wordplay is thus, in part, "EG (for example) GS (seedless grapes)" or EGGS. As for the rest of the rest of the wordplay, perhaps "Made from eggs, whisked up (but not scrambled)" is just intended to be the recipe for an omelette.

The "but not scrambled" could also be a hint that there is no anagram in the clue. I infer from the discussion on Big Dave's site that this clue may be similar to a seemingly legendary one that did involve an anagram.

By the way, I discovered that rapeseed oil, which contains high levels of erucic acid, is a bitter tasting oil used for lubricating machinery and as a fuel. Canola, a cultivar of rape, produces edible oils because it has lower levels of erucic acid. Canola was developed in Canada and the name derives from CANadian Oil Low Acid. I had long believed that Canola oil was merely rapeseed oil under a different name - Canola presumably being more palatable to the ear than rape. It turns out that Canola oil actually has significantly different properties than true rapeseed oil.

Signing off for today - Falcon