Monday, March 7, 2011 (DT 26416)

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26416
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Monday, December 6, 2010
Setter Rufus
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26416]
Big Dave's Review Written By Libellule
Big Dave's Rating
Difficulty - **	Enjoyment - ***
Falcon's Performance ┌────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┐ ███████████████████████████████████ └────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┘ Legend: █ - solved without assistance █ - solved with assistance from puzzle solving tools █ - unsolved or incorrect prior to visiting Big Dave's blog
Notes The National Post has skipped DT 26415 which was published in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday, December 4, 2010

Introduction

I got down to one clue (19d) remaining before popping open the Tool Chest - only to kick myself for not having found the solution unaided.

Today's Glossary

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

[Items marked with an asterisk are from a Cumulative Glossary of entries appearing, since the beginning of this year, in either this blog or its companion blog, the Ottawa Citizen Cryptic Crossword Forum.]

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.

*form - noun 6 chiefly British a class or year in a school, usually given a specifying number: the fifth form

Appearing in Solutions:

*Bath - a spa town in SW England; population 81,600 (est. 2009). The town was founded by the Romans, who called it Aquae Sulis, and was a fashionable spa in the 18th and early 19th centuries.

*master¹ - noun 2 a man in charge of an organization or group, in particular: [1^st entry] British a male schoolteacher: the games master

masterclass - noun a class, especially in music, given by an expert to highly talented students

[Note: our setter chooses to spell this word as master-class which likely means that it appears that way in the big red tome from Chambers. Oxford and Collins both have it as a single word, while the American Heritage Dictionary, Encarta (U.K.), Encarta (U.S.) and Random House all have it as two words. The word is not to be found at Search Chambers in any of these three forms.]

*or² - noun gold or yellow, as a heraldic tincture

pays - French country

*rag² - [Collins English Dictionary] noun 1. British a boisterous practical joke, especially one on a fellow student

rag² - noun [usually as modifier] British a programme of stunts, parades, and other entertainments organized by students to raise money for charity: rag week

• [British] informal, dated a boisterous prank or practical joke

Trident - 2 a US design of submarine-launched long-range ballistic missile

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.

13a   Dire disaster - trapped by high-explosive missile (7)

While compiling Today's Glossary, I noted that Gazza's (oops!, my error) Libellule's statement referring to the Trident missile as "a British ballistic missile" might be a slight bit misleading (or perhaps just ambiguous). It is true that Britain arms its Vanguard class submarines with Trident missiles - missiles that it purchases from the U.S. The Trident missiles used by the U.K., however, are equipped with British-built warheads.

According to the Wikipedia article on the Trident missile:

Trident missiles are provided to the United Kingdom under the terms of the 1963 Polaris Sales Agreement which was modified in 1982 for Trident. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had written to President Carter on July 10, 1980 to request that he approve supply of Trident I missiles. However in 1982 Thatcher wrote to President Reagan to request the United Kingdom be allowed to procure the Trident II (designated D5) system, the procurement of which had been accelerated by the US Navy. This was agreed in March 1982. Under the agreement, the United Kingdom made a 10% research and development contribution.

The BBC article to which Gazza links in his review states that "All the UK's warheads are built at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston, Berkshire."

18a   Marian has a song in her heart (4)

... and this clue has a definition ("song") in its heart. Although fairly rare, one does sometimes find the definition in the middle of the clue in British cryptic crosswords. This practice, obviously allowed in British publications, is (from my limited experience) rarely - if ever - seen in American cryptic crosswords.

Signing off for today - Falcon