Wednesday, September 22, 2010 (DT 26274)

This puzzle, by Jay, was originally published in The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Introduction

Having been able to complete the puzzle without needing to resort to external aids, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the puzzle had earned a three star rating from Big Dave. Perhaps my solving ability is improving - or maybe I was just tuned to the right wavelength today.

Today's Glossary

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

Used in Clues:

Ascot - a town in southern England, south-west of Windsor. Its racecourse is the site of an annual race meeting.

golf - noun 2 a code word representing the letter G, used in radio communication

Used in Solutions:

bent - adjective 2 British slang a dishonest; corrupt

River Dee

1 a river in NE Scotland, which rises in the Grampian Mountains and flows eastwards past Balmoral Castle to the North Sea at Aberdeen  

2 a river which rises in North Wales and flows past Chester and on into the Irish Sea

deputize (also deputise) - verb

• [no object] temporarily act or speak on behalf of someone else: the post-holder is required to deputize for the manager in their absence
• [with object] North American make (someone) a deputy

[I noted with interest that Chambers, Collins and Oxford all show deputize as the primary spelling, with deputise as the alternate spelling.]

jar¹ - noun British informal a glass of beer: let's have a jar

recondite - adjective (of a subject or knowledge) little known; abstruse: the book is full of recondite information; Origin: mid 17th century: from Latin reconditus 'hidden, put away', past participle of recondere, from re- 'back' + condere 'put together, secrete'

Today's Links

Big Dave's review of today's puzzle may be found at Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26274].

On the day that this puzzle appeared in the U.K., it seems the Brits were biting their nails in trepidation - awaiting the budget to be delivered later that day.

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

I noted a distinct difference in tone between the top half and the bottom half of the puzzle, with the former having words expressing clarity and completeness (such as those at 1a, 12a and 13a) and the latter having words conveying a sense of obscurity and lack of completeness (such as those at 19a, 21a, and 27a).

20d A couple of presents are neither here nor there (7)

Big Dave comments in his review "a bit careless to include part of the wordplay in the definition". While normally I would tend to agree with him, I beg to differ in this case. The clue is a charade of "a couple of presents" (i.e., two words, each of which means "present"), namely HERE and NOW (or, in reality, the other way around) forming a word (NOWHERE) that means "neither here nor there". I think it is quite a clever misdirection for the surface reading to seem to tell us that neither of the words making up the charade is "here" when one of the words is precisely that.


Signing off for today - Falcon