Wednesday, February 16, 2011 (DT 26401)

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26401
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, November 18, 2010
Setter Ray T
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26401]
Big Dave's Review Written By Big Dave
Big Dave's Rating
Difficulty - ***	Enjoyment - ***
Falcon's Performance ┌────┬────┬────┬────┐ ████████████████████ └────┴────┴────┴────┘

Introduction
I was just about ready to reach for the Tool Chest with four intersecting clues left to be solved (11a, 18a, 7d, and 14d). Instead, I went to the gym for a workout. Picking up the puzzle again after lunch, I decided to take one more crack at the remaining clues. With the application of a bit of concentrated effort, first one fell - and the others quickly followed.

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.

Bury - a town in Greater Manchester, England and home of the Bury Football Club (known as "The Shakers").

hooter - noun

• 1 chiefly British a siren or steam whistle, especially one used as a signal for work to begin or finish
• the horn of a motor vehicle
• 2 informal a person's nose.
• 3 (hooters) North American vulgar slang a woman's breasts

Appearing in Solutions:

AB² - abbreviation [1^st entry] able seaman, noun a rank of sailor in the Royal Navy above ordinary seaman and below leading seaman

ho. - abbreviation house

Inter Milan (in full, Football Club Internazionale Milano, commonly known as Internazionale or Inter, and - outside Italy - as Inter Milan) - a professional Italian football club based in Milan, Lombardy, Italy. Inter are the champions of Italy, their win in 2009–10 being a fifth successive title, equalling the all-time record. Inter are also the reigning European and World champions.

it¹ - pronoun 8 (usually ‘it’) informal sexual intercourse or sex appeal

motor - noun 2 British informal a car

nous - noun 1 British informal common sense; practical intelligence: if he had any nous at all, he'd sell the film rights

p - abbreviation [4^th entry] Music piano (softly [or quietly])

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.

9a   Open out cutter and cut (9)

I have to confess that I reverse engineered the wordplay here. "Out" is often used on its own as an anagram indicator, but "open out" is a new one on me - and one that I'm not sure I really get.

26a   A little hooter? (5)

There is likely far more chance for the misdirection in this clue to work in the U.K. where "hooter" may refer to an automobile horn or a factory whistle than on this side of the Atlantic. While it is not unheard of here for a nose to be referred to as a "hooter", it is also not all that common. The most common usage (generally used in the plural) would be in reference to a woman's breasts, although the adjective most often associated with this usage would be 'big' - not 'little'. Although Oxford calls this usage "vulgar", it is not so vulgar as to preclude the existence of an international restaurant chain operating under that name spanning the U.S., Canada and well beyond (with the lovelies in the accompanying illustration appearing to be from Australia) - whose obviously carefully selected waitresses are attired in a manner indicative of the name.

3d   The German and French held in check (5)

This is what I like to call a "recipe clue" since one must parse the clue as if it were a series of steps. One might think of the wordplay being written as "(1) The German; (2) and French held", with the clue being interpreted as:

1. Start with a German word meaning "the"
2. Into it, insert a French word meaning "and" [a French word meaning "and" is contained (held)]
3. The solution is a word meaning "check"

10d   Girl's someone thankless about the heartless break up (12)

Like Big Dave, I saw that this might be a containment type clue with the wordplay being DIS (girl's; Di's) + INGRATE (someone thankless) containing (about) TE {the heartless; i.e., "the" with its middle letter (heart) deleted}.

However, I think one would have as much justification to decode the wordplay as DIS (girls) + INTEGRA {an anagram (about) of INGRATE} + TE (the heartless).

In either case, the definition is "break up" and the solution is DISINTEGRATE.

15d   Meddling isn't in our diverse characters (9)

As in 9a, I found the anagram indicator (diverse characters) to be somewhat unusual. I did identify that the solution might be an anagram of ISN'T IN OUR, but it wasn't obvious which end of the clue was the definition and which was the anagram indicator. In fact, I considered "meddling" to be the more likely candidate for the anagram indicator and so was looking for a solution meaning "diverse characters". However, reality turned out to be the mirror image of this.

Signing off for today - Falcon