Wednesday, September 21, 2011 - DT 26590

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26590
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Setter Shamus
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26590]
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 █ - reviewed by Falcon for Big Dave's blog

Introduction

I certainly felt that this puzzle was a bit more difficult than the Brits appear to have found it. I completed the north-east quadrant on my own, but needed help from my electronic assistants to solve clues scattered across the remaining quadrants.

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.

batman - noun dated (in the British armed forces) an officer’s personal servant.

Elizabeth I - (1533 – 1603), queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty.

Appearing in Solutions:

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

*DI - abbreviation [2^nd entry] (in the UK) Detective Inspector

Within the British police, inspector is the second supervisory rank. It is senior to that of sergeant, but junior to that of chief inspector. Plain-clothes detective inspectors are equal in rank to their uniformed counterparts, the prefix 'detective' identifying them as having been trained in criminal investigation and being part of or attached to their force's Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

[John] Dryden - (1631–1700), English poet, critic, and dramatist of the Augustan Age. He is best known for Marriage à la mode (comedy, 1673), All for Love (a tragedy based on Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, 1678), and Absalom and Achitophel (verse satire in heroic couplets, 1681).

*Eton College - a boys‘ public school in southern England, on the River Thames opposite Windsor, founded in 1440 by Henry VI to prepare scholars for King’s College, Cambridge. [Note: a 'public' school in Britain would be regarded as a 'private' school in North America.]

public school - noun 1. (in the UK) a private fee-paying secondary school, especially one for boarders. 2. (chiefly in North America) a school supported by public funds.

F - [The Chambers Dictionary, 11th Edition] abbreviation Fellow (of a society, etc)

F² - [11^th entry] abbreviation France (international vehicle registration).

fall - noun 5. (also Fall) North American autumn: that fall Roosevelt was elected to his first term [Note: in Canada (and also in the US, as far as I know), the terms autumn and fall are used interchangeably]

Ibiza - the westernmost of the Balearic Islands.

Jo [March] - character in the novel Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

[Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of] Leicester - (1532 – 1588), English nobleman and the favourite and close friend of Elizabeth I from her first year on the throne until his death. She giving him reason to hope, he was a suitor for the Queen's hand for many years.

Lester [Piggott] - retired English professional jockey, popularly known as "The Long Fellow". He is considered to be the best of his generation and the greatest English flat jockey of all time, with 4,493 career wins, including nine Derby victories.

minim - noun 1 Music, British a note having the time value of two crotchets or half a semibreve, represented by a ring with a stem.  Also called half note

MOT - noun [a] (also MOT test) (in the UK) a compulsory annual test for safety and exhaust emissions of motor vehicles of more than a specified age. [b] (also MOT certificate) a document certifying that a vehicle has passed the MOT test.

*OB - abbreviation 1 old boy, noun 1. British [a] a former male student of a school or college [b] a former male member of a sports team or company 2. informal [a] an elderly man [b] chiefly British an affectionate form of address to a boy or man

PR - [1^st entry] abbreviation proportional representation, noun an electoral system in which parties gain seats in proportion to the number of votes cast for them.

Ry - abbreviation Railway.

tail¹ - noun 3. [3^rd entry] Cricket the end of the batting order, with the weakest batsmen: McDermott worked his way through the tail, finishing with ten wickets

*ton² - noun fashionable style or distinction: riches and fame were no guarantee of a ticket — one had to have ton; Origin: French, from Latin tonus (see tone)

ton² - 3. donner le ton: French phrase meaning "to set the tone" or "to set the fashion"

*U² - abbreviation British universal (denoting films classified as suitable without restriction).

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

windscreen - noun British [North American windshield] a glass screen at the front of a motor vehicle.

Signing off for today - Falcon