Friday, April 16, 2010 (DT 26122)

This puzzle, set by Rufus, was originally published Monday, December 28, 2009 in The Daily Telegraph

The National Post has skipped DT 26121 which was published in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday, December 26, 2009

Introduction

As the Daily Telegraph did not publish on Christmas Day, we jump ahead to the puzzle published on Monday, December 28, 2009. This ends a run of a couple of weeks during which the puzzles were published in the National Post on the same day of the week that they first appeared in the U.K.

This puzzle may have been slightly more difficult than the average Monday puzzle, but it had what I thought to be some rather clever clues (I especially enjoyed 7d and 13d, which each brought a huge smile to my face when I finally got them). I thought that their appeal might be mainly due to their newness to me - and wondered how novel they might be for the Brits and what they might think of them. It was good to see that they were also well received across the Atlantic.

Today's Glossary

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

Association Football - noun more formal term for SOCCER

Eton - Eton College, a public school located in Eton, England [Note: In the U.K., in a bizarre twist (to North Americans, at least), a public school is "a private fee-paying secondary school"].

Today's Links

Rishi's review of today's puzzle may be found at Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26122].

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

24a Handy aid to warmth (4)

A cryptic definition for something one would use to warm one's hands. From my research, I also discovered that muff has a vulgar slang sense, new to me, but whose usage must be quite widespread since I found it in both British and American dictionaries. This could also serve as a pleasant spot to warm one's hands - for at least one of the parties.

8d Football club? (11)

What much of the rest of the world calls soccer, the Brits call football - or, more formally, Association Football. I did learn one new and interesting fact today. The origin of the word soccer is actually the "shortening of Assoc from ASSOCIATION FOOTBALL" [Note: if you happen to believe that "soccer" is not shorter than "Assoc", please refer you comments to Oxford.].

Signing off for today - Falcon