Friday, February 4, 2011 (DT 26388)

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26388
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Setter Jay
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26388]
Big Dave's Review Written By Big Dave
Big Dave's Rating
Difficulty - **	Enjoyment - ****
Falcon's Performance ┌────┬────┬────┬────┐ ████████████████████ └────┴────┴────┴────┘

Introduction

I found it to be an unusually quick - but thoroughly enjoyable - solve today. This also seems to correlate well with Big Dave's assessment of the puzzle.

Today, I introduce a bit of an enhancement in the Today's Glossary section by highlighting entries that have not appeared before (at least recently). I have collected all the glossary entries since the first of the year in a blog entry called Cumulative Glossary (accessible via a link in the Tool Chest section of the right sidebar). The entries in the daily blogs that appear in red text are new entries that have not been collected in the Cumulative Glossary.

Today's Glossary

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

Appearing in Clues:

The meanings listed in this section may reflect how the word is used in the surface reading of the clue. Of course, that meaning may be contributing to the misdirection that the setter is attempting to create.

Cornwall - a county occupying the extreme south-western peninsula of England; county town, Truro

Devon¹ - (also Devonshire) a county of SW England; county town, Exeter

motorway - noun British a dual-carriageway road designed for fast traffic, with relatively few places for joining or leaving

Appearing in Solutions:

crease - noun 2 Cricket

• any of a number of lines marked on the pitch at specified places.  See popping crease, bowling crease, return crease
• (the crease) the position of a batsman during their innings: England were 15 for 3 overnight, with Stewart and Russell at the crease

M1 - a major north–south motorway in England primarily connecting London to Leeds

semi - noun informal 1 British a semi-detached house: a three-bedroomed semi

Note: Although Oxford characterises this expression as British, it is also a common term in this part of Canada. However, we would say 'three-bedroom semi'.

South West England - one of the nine official Regions of England, comprising  Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly

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.

3d   Part of Oxford society? (5,5)

I totally missed the fact that an "Oxford" is a type of shoe (with an "upper" being part of a shoe). The clue is an & lit. (all-in-one) where the entire clue is a cryptic definition of UPPER CLASS and the wordplay is UPPER (part of Oxford) + CLASS (society). I had thought that the clue might be a play on words involving the British expression "up at Oxford" (see Today's Glossary). Then again, perhaps the cryptic definition part is exactly that.

5d Crawl from the Devon and Cornwall motorway northwards (4)

It took a while to work through the misdirection in this clue. We are not looking for a "Devon and Cornwall motorway" (or even a "Cornwall motorway") at all, but merely a "motorway". The highway of interest is actually the M1, which runs from London to Leeds, passing nowhere near Devon and Cornwall. These two counties are located at the far south west tip of England. While they comprise only part of the official Region of South West England, they are likely what most people would truly consider to be the south west.

The definition is "crawl" with the solution being SWIM. The wordplay is SW (Devon and Cornwall) + a reversal (northwards, in a down clue) of MI (motorway, M1).

Signing off for today - Falcon