Tuesday, August 2, 2011 - DT 26547

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26547
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Monday, May 9, 2011
Setter Rufus
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26547]
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 █ - reviewed by Falcon for Big Dave's blog
Notes The National Post has skipped DT 26546 which was published in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday, May 7, 2011

Introduction

As was the case with many of the Brits who commented at Big Dave's site, I definitely found the left hand side of the puzzle more difficult than the right hand side. Having originally entered an incorrect solution at 17a certainly did nothing to aid my progress.

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.

Bill - noun (the Bill or the Old Bill) [treated as singular or plural] British informal the police.

Appearing in Solutions:

aspidistra - noun a bulbous plant of the lily family with broad tapering leaves, native to eastern Asia and widely grown as a houseplant. [Genus Aspidistra, family Liliaceae]

chide - verb (past chided or archaic chid; past participle chided or archaic chidden) scold or rebuke: she chided him for not replying to her letters; [with direct speech]‘Now, now,’ he chided

*DD - abbreviation Doctor of Divinity.

Garda - noun [a] [treated as singular or plural] the state police force of the Republic of Ireland. [b] (plural Gardai) a member of the Irish police force.

kirk - noun Scottish and Northern English 1 a church. 2 (the Kirk or the Kirk of Scotland) the Church of Scotland as distinct from the Church of England or from the Episcopal Church in Scotland.

The Lancet - a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal which was founded in Britain in 1823 and is one of the world's best known, oldest, and most respected publications of its kind.

riddle² - verb 2 [a] pass (a substance) through a large coarse sieve: for final potting, the soil mixture is not riddled [b] remove ashes or other unwanted material from (something, especially a fire or stove) with a sieve.

shop - verb 2 British informal inform on (someone): she shopped her husband to bosses for taking tools home

spider crab - noun a crab with long thin legs and a compact pear-shaped body, which is camouflaged in some kinds by attached sponges and seaweed. [Majidae and other families, order Decapoda: Macropodia and other genera]

Tyne - a river in NE England, formed by the confluence of two headstreams, the North Tyne, which rises in the Cheviot Hills, and the South Tyne, which rises in the northern Pennines. It flows generally eastwards, entering the North Sea at Tynemouth.

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.

12a   Affected types from the Paris model agency (7)

The premise of this clue is that a Paris model might be called "un poseur" - seemingly a bit of licence on the part of the setter. As Libellule also points out, a model in France would actually be called "un modèle" or "un mannequin" (or une mannequin). [It seems that modèle is masculine even when the model is a woman. Although the source cited shows mannequin as being either masculine or feminine, another French dictionary that I consulted shows it as always being masculine.] Un poseur might be a worker who lays floors or, used in a pejorative sense, a show-off.

17a   Administer a beating - at Westminster? (4)

I did consider Westminster meaning the British Houses of Parliament, as well as possibly Westminster Abbey. Nevertheless, unable to make headway with either of those options, my mind wandered to the Westminster Kennel Club (forgetting or overlooking the fact that it is an American institution, rather than a British one). Thus I somewhat tentatively put in CLUB as my first stab at a solution. This really messed me up in the lower left hand quadrant for a bit. However, once I had solved 12d, the error was revealed and the correct solution readily became apparent.

Signing off for today - Falcon