Thursday, March 25, 2010 (DT 26105)

This puzzle by Rufus was originally published Monday, December 7, 2009 in The Daily Telegraph

The National Post has skipped DT 26104 which was published on Saturday, December 5, 2009 in The Daily Telegraph

Introduction

While Rishi gave this puzzle three stars for difficulty, I would say that it may have been a bit easier than that - although many of the Brits certainly would not appear to agree with me, judging by the discussion on Big Dave's blog. I have found that cryptic crosswords exist in a realm where the old adage "What's sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander" (where I may be putting a little different spin on this old saying) definitely does not apply. The maxim here would seem to be "One man's meat is another man's poison".

Today's Glossary

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

form - noun [10] Brit. a long bench without a back

it makes no odds - PHRASES informal, chiefly Brit. it does not matter

MB - abbreviation 1 Medicinae Baccalaureus (Latin), Bachelor of Medicine

rugby union (abbreviation RU) - noun a form of rugby played in teams of fifteen, traditionally strictly amateur but opened to professionalism in 1995

Westminster - a synonym for the Parliament of the United Kingdom derived from the name of the area of Central London in which the Houses of Parliament are located

Today's Links

Rishi's review of today's puzzle may be found at Big Dave's Telegraph Crossword Blog [DT 26105].

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

5d A crossword! (4)

This very concise clue seems to have given many solvers a hard time. In fact, many of them erroneously arrived at the solution CLUE. Luckily, I avoided that trap. The clue is a cryptic definition which the setter has emphasized with an exclamation mark at the end. The solution becomes more apparent if one translates the clue as "A word meaning cross". Crux (the Latin word for cross) is another name (in fact, it is the formal name) for the Southern Cross constellation and is also found (apparently rarely) in heraldry as a word for cross. However, those who failed to correctly solve this clue might tend to gravitate toward yet another meaning of the word, namely "a puzzling or apparently insoluble problem".

Signing off for today - Falcon