Tuesday, August 10, 2010 (DT 26234)

This puzzle, by Giovanni, was originally published in The Daily Telegraph on Friday, May 7, 2010

Introduction

I was a bit surprised to see that Gazza awarded this puzzle four stars for difficulty. Despite its rather generous serving of Briticisms, I didn't have too much trouble with it (although I definitely needed the help of implements from my Tool Chest).

Today's Glossary

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

Used in Clues:

board - noun 5 a person's meals, provided in return for money • bed and board.

pontoon² - noun 1 (2^nd subentry) a bridge or landing stage supported by pontoons.

Used in Solutions:

beefeater - (or Beefeater) noun British a Yeoman of the Guard, or a Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London, both of whom wear the same Tudor-style ceremonial uniform.

Coco the Clown - according to Wikipedia, "arguably the most famous clown in the UK during the middle decades of the 20th century."

coconut shy - noun British a fairground sideshow where balls are thrown at coconuts in an attempt to knock them off stands.

outlier - noun 3 someone who lives away from their place of work.

pom - noun Australian/NZ informal, often derogatory a British person.

prom - noun informal 2 British short for promenade concert • the last night of the Proms.

Proms - informal name for the BBC Promenade Concerts.

promenade concert - noun British a concert of classical music at which a part of the audience stands in an area without seating, for which tickets are sold at a reduced price. The most famous series of such concerts is the annual BBC Promenade Concerts (known as the Proms), instituted by Sir Henry Wood in 1895.

S² - abbreviation 5 Society.

Laurence Sterne - an 18^th century English novelist.

sub - noun 2 British a subscription.

table - noun 3 the food served at a particular table or in a particular house • keeps a good table.

taramasalata - noun modern Greek a creamy pale pink pâté, made from the eggs of fish, esp. smoked cod’s roe, and served as an hors d’oeuvre.

thearchy - noun (plural thearchies) archaic rule by a god or gods.

Today's Links

Gazza's review of today's puzzle may be found at Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26234].

On the day that this puzzle appeared in the U.K., it seems that Gazza and a number of other Brits were "suffering from sleep deprivation, having stayed up half the night watching the election results". There is some discussion regarding the merits - or lack thereof - of The Archies, a virtual garage band founded by Archie Andrews, Reggie Mantle, and Jughead Jones, a group of adolescent fictional characters of the Archie universe, in the context of the animated TV series, The Archie Show. One writer, Lea, states "Got stuck on 4d as hadn’t heard of the pop group (I was in Canada and Australia then)". However, this seems a rather lame excuse as The Archies were certainly big in Canada in their heyday.

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

23a Granted that some carnal thoughts will come along (8)

In the spirit of the clue, I can't resist observing that - like some seemingly buxom lasses - there's lots of padding to enhance this hidden word clue.

24a Pontoon? It's something played with cards (6)

Although I found the correct solution quite readily, I was about to take issue with the definition until I found that Oxford, in fact, defines "pontoon" as a bridge. I had previously only been familiar with pontoon as a support for a bridge or used as a modifier in an expression such as pontoon bridge.

By the way, the surface reading of the clue would be more meaningful (and perhaps more misleading) to the Brits, since pontoon is a name (or, perhaps, the name) in Britain for the card game known in North American as twenty-one or blackjack or in French as vingt-et-un. Apparently, the British also have a card game called black jack, but it is a variation of crazy eights.

Signing off for today - Falcon