Monday, February 7, 2011 (DT 26389)

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26389
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, November 4, 2010
Setter Ray T
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26389]
Big Dave's Review Written By Big Dave
Big Dave's Rating
Difficulty - ****	Enjoyment - ****
Falcon's Performance ┌────┬────┬────┬────┐ ████████████████████ └────┴────┴────┴────┘

Introduction

There were some tricky clues in today's puzzle, and I did resort to my Tool Chest with a couple yet to solve. However, given that this is one of those rare puzzles that gets a four star rating for difficulty from Big Dave, I still feel pretty good about my performance.

Today's Errata

7a   Housing Eastern workers in temporary accomodation (8)

I failed to notice that "accommodation" is spelled incorrectly. However, this error did not escape Big Dave's keen powers of observation.

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.

Oscar² - noun a code word representing the letter O, used in radio communication

stir² - noun informal prison: I've spent twenty-eight years in stir

Zaragoza - Spanish name for Saragossa, a city in northern Spain, capital of Aragon, situated on the River Ebro; population 666,129 (2008).

Zaragoza suffered two famous sieges during the Peninsular War against Napoleonic army: a first from June to August 1808; and a second from December 1808 to February 1809 (see Agustina de Aragón, Siege of Saragossa (1809)), surrendering only after some 50,000 defenders had died.

Appearing in Solutions:

C (1) - noun 8. drugs (slang)Same as cocaine

I³ - abbreviation Italy (international vehicle registration)

Penelope - in Homer's Odyssey, the faithful wife of Odysseus, who keeps her suitors at bay in his long absence and is eventually reunited with him

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.

2d   Run and hide (4)

The solution to the clue is Penelope, the wife of Odysseus in Greek legend. However, the Penelope being obsessed over by some of the British gents at Big Dave's site today is a puppet - Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward who was the London Agent for the secret organisation International Rescue in the hit British Supermarionation television series Thunderbirds. While this series originally ran in the U.K. in the mid-1960s, I'm not sure when it first aired in Canada. I am only familiar with it from having observed my children watching it some 20 or 25 years later.

8d   Painter's god around Italy (6)

As I sometimes have a tendency to do, I made this clue overly complicated. Thinking that "Italy" must be IT, I embarked upon a search for a god named Tian - and actually found one: "Tian is one of the oldest Chinese terms for the cosmos and a key concept in Chinese mythology, philosophy, and religion. During the Shang Dynasty (17th–11th centuries BCE) the Chinese called god Shangdi ('lord on high') or Di ('lord'), and during the Zhou Dynasty (11th–3rd centuries BCE) Tian 'heaven; god' became synonymous with Shangdi."

Signing off for today - Falcon