Friday, November 19, 2010 (DT 26322)

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26322
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Setter Jay
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26322]
Big Dave's Review Written By Crypticsue
Big Dave's Rating
Difficulty - ***	Enjoyment - **/***

Introduction

In her review, Crypticsue observes that she "took a while to get into today’s Jay puzzle". I had a similar experience, needing to resort to a little electronic help after solving only four or five clues. However, once I had found one or two clues using that help, I was then able to get quite a few more clues without assistance. I did end up with a couple of incorrect entries - largely due to carelessness.

Today's Errata

11a Bird song under the baobob tree - finally! (5)

The National Post repeats a spelling error that originally appeared in The Daily Telegraph - the correct spelling of the name of this tree is baobab.

Today's Glossary

Selected abbreviations, people, places, words and expressions appearing in today's puzzle

Appearing in Solutions:

boob ¹ - noun informal

• 1 British an embarrassing mistake
• 2 North American a foolish or stupid person

know-all - noun British informal a person who behaves as if they know everything [Note: the equivalent North American expression is know-it-all]

let ¹ - verb 3 chiefly British allow someone to have the use of (a room or property) in return for regular payments: she let the flat to a tenant; they've let out their house [Note: this usage is not unknown in North America, but one would be far more likely to hear rent than let]

piano ² - music adverb softly. adjective soft. noun a passage of music to be played or performed softly.

British Sky Broadcasting Group (or Sky for short) - a public satellite broadcasting company operating in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is the largest pay-TV broadcaster in The United Kingdom.

U ³ - adjective British informal (of language or social behaviour) characteristic of or appropriate to the upper social classes: U manners

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

This commentary should be read in conjunction with the review at Big Dave's Crossword Blog, to which a link is provided in the table above.

5a Display of food causing strike (6)

An error at 7d compounded by a bit of carelessness led to a mistake here. Having incorrectly entered OPEN RANGE instead of FREE-RANGE at 7d, I came up with PUT OUT as a solution here. For some unknown reason, I failed to notice that the numeration (3,3) of this effort clearly does not match that of the clue. Instead I became preoccupied with trying (albeit, unsuccessfully) to decipher the wordplay. Display could mean put out, as to put out something for viewing. I also thought that strike might somehow be related to out as a cricket term. However, I was totally at a loss to see how food might factor into the wordplay.

Signing off for today - Falcon