Thursday, January 27, 2011 (DT 26381)

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26381
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Setter Shamus
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26381]
Big Dave's Review Written By Gazza
Big Dave's Rating
Difficulty - ***	Enjoyment - ***
Falcon's Performance ┌────┬────┬────┬────┐ ████████████████████ └────┴────┴────┴────┘

Introduction

I solved virtually the entire puzzle outside the northwest quadrant unaided - but needed lots of assistance from my Tool Chest in that sector. I did play around with LINGERIE at 9a, until I discovered that, while I was in the right department, I needed to narrow my choice in ladies' garments. Distracted by all these women's underwear and night clothes, I failed to notice that the puzzle is a pangram.

Today's Glossary

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

Appearing in Clues:

Romeo - noun 3 communications in the NATO alphabet: the word used to denote the letter 'R'

Appearing in Solutions:

kirk - noun Scottish & Northern English 1 a church

Kirkwall - the largest town and capital of Orkney, off the coast of northern mainland Scotland

local - noun British informal a pub convenient to a person's home: a pint in the local

nit¹ - noun informal 2 British a foolish person: you stupid nit!

rabbit - British informal

• noun 2 a conversation: we had quite a heated rabbit about it
• verb 2 talk at length, especially about trivial matters:stop rabbiting on, will you, and go to bed!

The expression derives from rabbit and pork, rhyming slang for ‘talk’. Yes, apparently the Brits (or some of them, at least) do pronounce 'talk' to rhyme with 'pork'. You can judge for yourself from the pronunciation examples to be found here: pork, talk.

RE - abbreviation religious education (as a school subject)

River Taff - a large river in Wales, arising as two rivers in the Brecon Beacons — the Taf Fechan (Little Taff) and the Taf Fawr (Big Taff) — before joining to form the Taff north of Merthyr Tydfil

semi - noun informal 1 British a semi-detached house: a three-bedroomed semi [Note: this expression is also frequently encountered in Canada]

Sierra - noun 2 communications in the NATO alphabet: the word used to denote the letter 'S'

spiv - noun British informal a man, typically a flashy dresser, who makes a living by disreputable dealings

Appearing at Big Dave's Crossword Blog

tip² - noun 1 British a place where rubbish is left [Note: In Canada, rubbish would more likely be called garbage and a tip would definitely be a dump. However, the dump might charge a tipping fee to deposit garbage there.]

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.

27a   Youngster really submitting name for college (6)

The definition is "youngster" with the solution being INFANT. The wordplay is IN FACT (really) with N replacing C - submitting N(ame) for C(ollege).

29a   Old man's mention of hot spring (6)

This is a homophone clue that (unlike the one at 14a) does not transport well outside Britain - and maybe not even within Britain. The definition is "old man", who happens to be a GEEZER, which (to a Brit) sounds like (mention of) GEYSER (hot spring). You can judge the similarity in pronunciation of these words (and contrast them with the North American pronunciations) by listening to the pronunciation examples to be found here: geezer, geyser.

Signing off for today - Falcon