Thursday, March 31, 2011 (DT 26440)

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26440
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Setter Shamus
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26440]
Big Dave's Review Written By Gazza
Big Dave's Rating
Difficulty - ★★★	Enjoyment - ★★★
Falcon's Performance ┌────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┐ ███████████████████████████████████ └────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┘ Legend: █ - solved without assistance █ - incorrect prior to use of puzzle solving tools █ - solved with assistance from puzzle solving tools █ - unsolved or incorrect prior to visiting Big Dave's blog

Introduction

I found this puzzle to be exceedingly easy - until I hit the southeast quadrant, which I found quite tricky indeed. I have often heard it said that a good strategy for tackling puzzles is to start in this bottom corner, presumably the thinking being that the setter may have lost a bit of his or her edge in a desire to finish off the puzzle. Well, that strategy would certainly have backfired today!

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 Solutions:

A1 - the longest numbered road in the UK at 410 miles (660 km), which connects London, England with Edinburgh, Scotland.

The Great Britain road numbering scheme is a numbering scheme used to classify and identify all roads in Great Britain. Each road is given a single letter, which represents the road's category, and a subsequent number, with a length of between 1 and 4 digits. Two schemes exist; one for roads of motorway standard (and classification), and another for non-motorway roads. Motorways are identified by the prefix M, and non-motorway roads by the prefixes A, B, C, D and U (unclassified).

The scheme applies only to England, Scotland and Wales. Alternative systems are used in Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and Jersey, Channel Islands.

Angus¹ - a council area of NE Scotland; administrative centre, Forfar. It was known from the 16th century until 1928 as Forfarshire, and between 1975 and 1996 was part of Tayside region.

CAB - abbreviation Citizens Advice Bureau, one of a network of independent charities throughout the UK that give free, confidential information and advice to help people with their money, legal, consumer and other problems

CH - abbreviation [2^nd entry] Switzerland (international vehicle registration). [from French Confédération Helvétique 'Swiss Confederation']

Should you prefer a more classical explanation, Chambers 21st Century Dictionary has the following to offer:
CH - abbreviation 2 International Vehicle Registration code: Confederatio Helvetica (Latin), Switzerland.

*E² - abbreviation 9 International Vehicle Registration code: España (Spanish), Spain

Hello (stylized as HELLO!) - a weekly magazine specializing in celebrity news and human-interest stories, published in the United Kingdom. Hello is a sister magazine to ¡Hola!, the Spanish weekly magazine launched in Spain in 1944. Hello and its sister publications from Spain and Mexico are distributed in over 100 countries, with local editions also being published in a number of countries, including Canada.

*leg - noun 5 (also leg side, on or on side) Cricket the half of the field (as divided lengthways through the pitch) away from which the batsman's feet are pointed when standing to receive the ball.  The opposite of off.

legless - adjective 2 British informal extremely drunk.

*lo - exclamation archaic used to draw attention to an interesting or amazing event: and lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them

*TA - abbreviation (in the UK) Territorial Army, a volunteer force locally organized to provide a reserve of trained and disciplined manpower for use in an emergency

te (North American ti) - British, music (in tonic sol-fa) the seventh note of a major scale

*U³ - adjective British informal (of language or social behaviour) characteristic of or appropriate to the upper social classes: U manners. [consequently superior or posh]

Appearing on Big Dave's blog

Waterstone's - a British book retailer with outlets throughout the United Kingdom and Europe which, since 1998, has been a subsidiary of the HMV Group

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.

21a   Funny lord with poor diet, one averse to new ways? (7)

"Funny lord" gives us, as Gazza puts it, "a facetious way of saying or spelling lord" or LUD. Remember that, with the soft British R, "lord" would normally be pronounced sort of like 'lawd', so 'lud' seemingly would not to be that much of a further stretch.

28a   Consummate portion following starter in Indian (5)

In this context, the Brits would understand "Indian" in the surface reading to mean 'Indian restaurant'. Thus the word starter would be seen to mean 'the first course of a meal'. Of course, in many cases, not understanding the surface reading can be an advantage, as one is not distracted by it and can cut right to the cryptic meaning.

The definition is "consummate", with the solution being IDEAL. The wordplay is DEAL (portion) following I (starter [i.e., starting letter] in Indian). Deal (meaning portion)is used in the sense of 'A good deal of blame for the loss rested on the shoulders of the goalkeeper who allowed several easy shots to get past him'.

4d   Refuses to participate in patrol away from home? (4,3)

The definition is "refuses to participate in" for which the solution is COPS OUT. I believe the wordplay must be COPS (patrol) + OUT (away from home), with patrol being used in the sense of 'a person or group of people sent to keep watch over an area: a police patrol stopped the man and searched him'. The clue actually seems to work much better when taken as a whole (as Gazza suggests in his review) with 'cops out' meaning "patrol away from home".

Signing off for today - Falcon