Wednesday, March 23, 2011 (DT 26433)

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26433
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Monday, December 27, 2010
Setter Giovanni
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26433]
Big Dave's Review Written By Libellule
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
Notes The National Post has skipped DT 26432, a seasonally themed Christmas Eve puzzle, which was published in The Daily Telegraph on Friday, December 24, 2010

Introduction

I needed to resort to my electronic aids fairly early today. I thought that my apparent sluggishness might be the aftereffects of having worked into the wee hours of the morning preparing a review for Big Dave's site on the puzzle which appears in today's edition of The Daily Telegraph. However, I see that many of the Brits also found it a bit of a struggle. Of course, they blamed the aftereffects of Christmas cheer.

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:

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.

Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs) - a county in the east of England

wallop - noun 2 British alcoholic drink, especially beer

Appearing in Solutions:

Saint Alban - (3rd century), the first British Christian martyr, a native of Verulamium (now St Albans). He was put to death for sheltering a fugitive priest. Feast day, 22 June.

ding² -

• noun informal, chiefly North American a mark or dent on the bodywork of a car, boat, or other vehicle; Scottish or dialect a blow on the head
• verb dent (something); hit (someone), especially on the head: I dinged him one;  (ding into) Scottish bump into

*fete - noun

• British a public function, typically held outdoors and organized to raise funds for a charity, including entertainment and the sale of goods and refreshments: a church fete
• chiefly North American a celebration or festival

Ford Transit - a range of panel vans, minibuses, and pickup trucks, produced by the Ford Motor Company in Europe which has been the best-selling light commercial vehicle in Europe for 40 years. In some countries of Europe the term "Transit" has passed into common usage as a generic term applying to any light commercial van in the Transit's size bracket.

Grantham - a market town in Lincolnshire, England known as the birthplace of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, and the place where Isaac Newton went to school

incomer - noun British a person who has come to live in an area in which they have not grown up, especially in a close-knit rural community

*L or l - U.K. money pounds [Latin librae]

*OR - abbreviation [3^rd entry] Military, British other ranks (as opposed to commissioned officers)

Albert, Prince Consort  - Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, later The Prince Consort; Francis Albert Augustus Charles Emmanuel (1819 – 1861) was the husband of Queen Victoria

publican - noun 1 British a person who owns or manages a pub

R² - abbreviation from Latin Regina (queen) or Rex (king): Elizabeth R or George R

Sark - one of the Channel Islands, a small island lying to the east of Guernsey

Strand - a street in the City of Westminster, London, England which starts at Trafalgar Square and runs east to join Fleet Street at Temple Bar

toff - noun British informal, derogatory a rich or upper-class person

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.

7d   After trick try to show disdain (8)

Try as I may, I cannot find any support for "try" meaning 'tempt' (as in the solution) or 'entice' (as in Libellule's hint). "Try" certainly does mean 'attempt' and I tried desperately to find a justification for discarding the leading 'AT' but without success. As it turns out, I am not alone in questioning this meaning. However, Libellule reiterates in response to a comment from Toadson that "Try, entice are synonyms for tempt".

10a   See woman fiddle with plant (5)

As Libellule points out, this is a triple definition. However, I vainly spent some time trying to make it into a quadruple definition, trying to somehow reconfigure the French exclamation 'Voila!' which could be translated into English as 'See!'.

13a   Bird bringing back rubbish, what you’d expect (6)

This was the final clue to be solved - which left me feeling somewhat red-faced!

21a   Hear William thump shed maybe (8)

I would amend Libellule's hint to begin "A homophone of [a nickname for] William ...".

25d   Change flow to go up, not down (4)

In this clue, I had a pretty good sense of the wordplay but was delayed looking for a 5-letter word meaning "flow" that when reversed (to go up) and had the letter D removed (not down) would mean "change". I eventually saw through the misdirection and realized that I needed a 4-letter word meaning "change" that would mean "flow" when it went up (was reversed) but not when it went down.

Signing off for today - Falcon