Tuesday, November 16, 2010 (DT 26318)

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26318
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Friday, August 13, 2010
Setter Giovanni
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26318]
Big Dave's Review Written By Gazza
Big Dave's Rating
Difficulty - ***	Enjoyment - ****

Introduction

I found this puzzle to be like a tangled pile of yarn - one must first find an end before the mess can be sorted out. If I remember correctly, I was on my second pass through the clues before I found an end - which happened to be 16a. By some fortuitous coincidence, the solution was also today's Word of the Day, another feature that appears on the National Post's Diversions page. Having solved one clue, I was able to leverage the checking letters it provided to conquer other clues, and so it proceeded until the puzzle was complete. Although there were a few new words today, brendam (writing on Big Dave's site) nicely sums up my feelings when she says "For me a super cryptic Xword because I could literally work out what the word was from the clue, even though I’d never heard of it."

Today's Glossary

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

Appearing in Clues:

gee-gee - noun British informal (in children's use or in racehorse betting) a horse

Appearing in Solutions:

boot - noun 3 British an enclosed space at the back of a car for carrying luggage or other goods [In North America, known as a trunk]

The River Dee - a 70-mile (110 km) long river that travels through Wales and England and also forms part of the border between the two countries. It is also the name of at least three other rivers in the U.K.

dory ¹ - [Collins English Dictionary] noun

• 1. any spiny-finned marine teleost food fish of the family Zeidae, especially the John Dory, having a deep compressed body 
• 2. another name for walleye (the fish)

histologist - noun one who studies the microscopic structure of tissues

ingle - chiefly dialect; origin: early 16th century (originally Scots): perhaps from Scottish Gaelic aingeal 'light, fire', Irish aingeal 'live ember'

• a domestic fire or fireplace
  
• an inglenook
  

Financial Times (FT) - a British international business newspaper, third in world circulation behind New York City-based The Wall Street Journal and India's The Economic Times.

Stephen Fry - English actor, writer, journalist, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club.

nark ¹ - verb British cause annoyance to: women like her nark me

put the boot in (or into someone) - phrase

• kick someone hard when they are on the ground
•  treat someone vulnerable in a cruel way

Sand eel (or sandeel) - the common name used for a considerable number of species of fish, most of them being sea fish of the genera Hyperoplus (greater sandeels), Gymnammodytes or Ammodytes. Many species are found off the western coasts of Europe from Spain to Scotland, and in the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas.

shy ² - verb dated fling or throw (something) at a target: he tore the spectacles off and shied them at her

slush - noun 1 half-melted snow. 2 any watery half-liquid substance; e.g., liquid mud.

Note: I am only familiar with the former usage; however, the latter meaning appears in both American and British dictionaries.

The Sun - a daily tabloid newspaper which is the largest-selling newspaper in the U.K. It and its broadsheet stablemate The Times are published by a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

sundowner - 2 Australian/NZ informal, dated a tramp arriving at a sheep station in the evening under the pretence of seeking work, so as to obtain food and shelter

t' - used in dialects in northern England for “the” [ref: Gazza's review]

An example of usage appears in a comment from Digby, a visitor to Big Dave's blog, who quotes an old saying “The only good thing to come out of Lancashire is t’road back to Yorkshire”

Note: This barb is thrown out during a friendly dispute among the Brits on Big Dave's site today about what constitutes "northern" England.

The Dales (more formally known as the Yorkshire Dales) - an upland area, in Northern England within the historic county boundaries of Yorkshire, most of which lies within Yorkshire Dales National Park.

tweed - noun 1. A coarse, rugged, often nubby woolen fabric made in any of various twill weaves and used chiefly for casual suits and coats

tweeds - noun clothes made of tweed: boisterous Englishwomen in tweeds

weed - noun 2 British informal a contemptibly feeble person

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.

13a Unfairly criticise what you suppose one of the car assemblers might do? (3,3,4,2)

Gazza characterises this as "a clue that might have been devised to confuse our transatlantic cousins". Well, he is correct about the phrase (although I was nearly able to puzzle it out - just needing to consult Oxford to confirm whether the final word was 'in' or 'on'). However, the British term 'boot' meaning the trunk of a car is fairly well known in North America (likely from British movies and television programmes).

21d Plan to cross river is silly (5)

One must do some mental gymnastics to solve this clue. The definition is "plan" and the wordplay is "to cross river is silly". However, we must essentially reverse the order of elements in the wordplay to get the correct cryptic meaning. So just as "To err is human" really means "It is human to err", the wordplay in this clue actually means "It is silly to cross river" or DAFT (silly) containing (to cross) R (river).

24a The northern chaps looking thin and weak in country clothes (6)

Despite obtaining the correct solution (based on the definition and checking letters), I needed Gazza's explanation to understand the wordplay. The definition is "country clothes" which are TWEEDS. The wordplay is T (the northern; i.e., the way the word 'the' is pronounced in dialects in northern England) + WEEDS (chaps looking thin and weak). Weed is British slang for a "a contemptibly feeble person".

Signing off for today - Falcon