Tuesday, January 25, 2011 (DT 26378)

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26378
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Friday, October 22, 2010
Setter Giovanni
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26378]
Big Dave's Review Written By Gazza
Big Dave's Rating
Difficulty - ***	Enjoyment - ***
Falcon's Performance ┌────┬────┬────┬────┐ ████████████████████ └────┴────┴────┴────┘

Introduction

The relatively small number of Briticisms in today's puzzle did not impede me significantly as I was able to guess a couple of those that I hadn't seen before from the wordplay. I should have gotten the third, but was mistakenly looking for a barrier that had been knocked down, rather than a sheep that had taken a tumble.

Today's Glossary

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

Appearing in Clues:

grass - noun 4 British informal a police informer

Appearing in Solutions:

lady's finger - [Oxford Dictionaries Online] noun British 1 another term for kidney vetch, a yellow-or orange-flowered grassland plant of the pea family. Native to Europe and the Mediterranean, it is sometimes grown as a fodder crop (Anthyllis vulneraria, family Leguminosae)

lady's finger -[Search Chambers] noun 1 okra 2 the popular name for the wild flower, kidney vetch

Margate - a seaside town in East Kent, England

pressie - noun British informal a present

snout - noun 3 British informal a police informer

up - adverb 4 [2^nd entry] British at or to a university, especially Oxford or Cambridge: they were up at Cambridge about the same time

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.

4d   Maybe something in the garden the woman had got rid of (4)

If one can't get the solution from two definitions, how about three. Here we have a triple definition: "maybe (i.e., an example of) something in the garden", "the woman had (i.e., she'd)" and "got rid of".

8d   Index woman uses maybe to find plant (5,6)

An "index lady uses" would be a 'lady's finger' which is also the name of a plant - in fact, the name of more than one plant. Oxford Dictionaries Online points us to kidney vetch (Anthyllis vulneraria) while Search Chambers directs us also to okra (Abelmoschus esculentus). Gazza's hint would appear to miss the point that these are two different plants - with okra being used primarily for food and kidney vetch a medicinal plant and fodder crop.

Signing off for today - Falcon