Wednesday, April 20, 2011 (DT 26457)

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26457
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Monday, January 24, 2011
Setter Rufus
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26457]
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 26456 which was published in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday, January 22, 2011

Introduction

This gentle offering from Rufus allowed my Tool Chest to enjoy a rare day off today.

Today's Glossary

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

[An asterisk beside an entry merely indicates that it has been taken it from a Cumulative Glossary of entries which have previously appeared, 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.

Chelsea Football Club - an English football club based in West London. Founded in 1905, they play in the Premier League and have spent most of their history in the top tier of English football.

Appearing in Solutions:

bang on - phrase British informal exactly right: the programme is bang on about the fashion world [despite being cited by Oxford Dictionaries Online as British usage, this sense of the expression is certainly also commonly used here in Canada]

bang on (about) - phrasal verb British informal talk at tedious length about (something): the government banged on about competition and the free market [I would think that this sense of the expression is much less commonly used in Canada.]

*CE - abbreviation [1^st entry] Church of England

Ely - a cathedral city in the fenland of Cambridgeshire, eastern England, on the River Ouse; population 15,600 (est. 2009)

*L³ - symbol the Roman numeral for 50

le - French the

The Left Bank - (in French, La Rive Gauche) is the southern bank of the river Seine in Paris. Here the river flows roughly westward, cutting the city in two: looking downstream, the southern bank is to the left, and the northern bank (or Rive Droite) is to the right.

R² (or R.) - abbreviation 4 a Regina (Latin), Queen; b Rex (Latin), King.

*sup¹ - noun

• a sip of liquid: he took another sup of wine
• Northern English & Irish alcoholic drink

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.

9a   Indoor transport (8)

I had to think long and hard about the wordplay here and really only fully understood it after reading Libellule's review. I readily understood that "transport" could mean ENTRANCE in the sense of 'to fill with delight or wonder' (to use Libellule's words). However, I didn't initially fully grasp the other part of this double definition, in which an "In" door would refer to an entrance (just as an "Out" door would be an exit).

Signing off for today - Falcon