Monday, November 8, 2010 (DT 26311)

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26311
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, August 5, 2010
Setter Unknown
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26311]
Big Dave's Review Written By Big Dave
Big Dave's Rating
Difficulty - ***	Enjoyment - ****

Introduction

While I second Big Dave's assessment of this puzzle being 4* on the enjoyment scale, I would raise the difficulty level to 4* as well for those of us on this side of the Atlantic due to the large number of British references together with a few foreign and archaic terms. The puzzle was a pleasure to do and I felt a great deal of satisfaction on not only having completed it, but in having deciphered all the wordplay.

Today's Glossary

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

Appearing in Clues:

bird - 3 British informal a young woman or a man's girlfriend

Appearing in Solutions:

Central line - a London Underground line, running east-west across London, and, at 76 km (47 mi), has the greatest total length of track of any line on the Underground and is the second busiest line on the Underground after the Northern line.

centre - noun 9 in some field sports, e.g., football [and rugby]: a a position in the middle of the field; b a player in this position.

de - French of

Ep. - apparently the abbreviation for epistle, although I was unable to find a source to substantiate this. The Free Dictionary website provides a list of 146 items for which EP can be an abbreviation - and none of them are epistle.

H - abbreviation Bridge (card game) heart or hearts [Note: Although Big Dave questions the usage of H when used in the singular (as apparently only the plural form appears in Chambers 11th Edition, seemingly the 'Bible' for the DT Cryptic), in practice on a bidding summary for a game of bridge, an entry of 1H would signify 1 heart while 2H would denote 2 hearts]

Ibrox Stadium - a football stadium located on the south side of the River Clyde, in the Ibrox district of Glasgow, Scotland. It is the home ground of Scottish Premier League club Rangers F.C.

Ken Livingstone - a British Labour Party politician, who served as the first elected Mayor of London, a post he held from its creation in 2000 until 2008.

Le Monde - a French daily evening newspaper, considered the French newspaper of record, and is generally well respected, often the only French newspaper easily obtainable in non-Francophone countries.

Robin Hood's Bay - a small fishing town or village and a bay located five miles south of Whitby and 15 miles north of Scarborough on the coast of North Yorkshire, England.

roundhouse - a type of house with a circular plan, originally built in western Europe before the Roman occupation using walls made either of stone or of wooden posts joined by wattle-and-daub panels and a conical thatched roof.

round the houses - idiom [likely British] If you go round the houses, you do something in an inefficient way when there is a quicker, more convenient way.

spoon - noun 2 a thing resembling a spoon in shape, in particular: ... Golf, dated a club with a slightly concave wooden head

Ted - noun British informal a Teddy boy, (in the 1950s) a young man of a subculture characterized by a style of dress based on Edwardian fashion (typically with drainpipe trousers, bootlace tie, and hair slicked up in a quiff) and a liking for rock-and-roll music; origin from Teddy, pet form of the given name Edward (with reference to Edward VII's reign) [I'm not sure why they might be seen as "troublesome", although this description has likely been applied to every 'youth subculture']

Thriller - the sixth studio album by American recording artist Michael Jackson, released on November 30, 1982.

tick ⁴ - noun (in phrase on tick) British informal on credit; origin mid 17th century: apparently short for ticket in the phrase on the ticket, referring to an IOU or promise to pay

TT - abbreviation 1 a teetotal; b teetotaller.

Commentary on Today's Puzzle

4a Reliant three-wheeler initially showing signs of corrosion (8)

Thanks to the_chairman (a visitor to Big Dave's blog), I learned that the "three-wheeler" referenced in the clue is not a tricycle but a three-wheeled British automobile, the Reliant Robin (also known as the "Plastic Pig").

10a Secretly record song about liberal country (8)

I figured that the definition must be "country" but I was held up in finding the solution by initially supposing that "song about" meant a reversal of the word AIR (i.e., RIA). While these are the final three letters of the solution, that is not how they are arrived at.

The wordplay is actually {BUG (secretly record) + ARIA (song)} containing (about) L (Liberal) to produce BULGARIA.

11a Despatched criminal leader in need to reform (9)

This is a nice & lit. (all-in-one) clue where one reading of the clue provides the wordplay - SENT (despatched) + {C (criminal leader; i.e., first letter of "criminal") contained in (in) ENED which is an anagram (to reform) of NEED}to produce the solution SENTENCED. A second reading of the entire clue provides a definition of the word SENTENCED.

17a Little Sarah given talking to for sauce (5,8)

I lost time here by interpreting the phrase "given talking to" as meaning "reprimand" for which "dressing down" would apply. However, "given" here is a charade indicator and the wordplay is SAL (little Sarah; i.e., diminutive of the name Sarah) + (given) ADDRESSING (talking to). The definition is "sauce" and the solution is SALAD DRESSING.

I only know that Sal is a diminutive for Sarah from having encountered it in previous puzzles, and.I suspect this usage may be more common in Britain than in North America. Certainly, I personally cannot recall encountering anyone named Sarah who was nicknamed Sal. The few people I have met who might have informally been referred to as Sal were, to the best of my knowledge, all named Sally - not Sarah. Perhaps Sally was also once a nickname for Sarah and this is a case of what started out as a nickname becoming a full fledged name in itself.

25a Bright light gets former mayor depressed (6)

I got bogged down for a while on this clue thinking that "gets" might be a containment indicator and thus was looking for a solution of the form SUxxxN. I eventually came to the realization that "gets", in this case, is a charade indicator and the solution is of the form SUN + xxx.

7d Ball collected by football team up in Scottish ground (5)

This was the last clue to be solved. I suspected that the solution would be the name of a Scottish football (soccer) or cricket field, but had not heard of this one. Only when I had all the checking letters was I able to search for words matching this pattern and then check if any of them might be a Scottish sports venue. Luckily, my search was quick as the correct answer happened to be at the top of the list. However, even after having found the correct solution, I puzzled for some time over the wordplay.

The definition is "Scottish ground" (as in sports field) and the wordplay is a reversal (up, it being a down clue) of {ORB (ball) contained in (collected by) XI (Roman numeral for eleven, the number of players on an Association football team)}. The solution is IBROX, the name of a football stadium in Glasgow, Scotland, the home ground of the Rangers F.C. of the Scottish Premier League.

Signing off for today - Falcon