Tuesday, December 13, 2011 - DT 26662

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26662
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Setter Unknown
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26662]
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 █ - solved with aid of checking letters provided by puzzle solving tools █ - unsolved or incorrect prior to visiting Big Dave's blog █ - reviewed by Falcon for Big Dave's blog

Introduction

After a rather slow start, I made good progress today. I did need to call in my electronic assistants for the final three clues. I desperately wanted to put The Iliad at 7a and blower at 8d. Not only were they incompatible with each other, they were just plain wrong. On the positive side, I did correctly decipher the Glouscestershire town at 19d merely from the wordplay (or perhaps it was mere luck).

Notes on Today's Puzzle

This commentary is intended to serve as a supplement to the review of this puzzle found at Big Dave's Crossword Blog, to which a link is provided in the table above.

7a   Novel story of an orphan girl breaking finger (3,5)

A finger^[4] according to Collins English Dictionary is "a quantity of liquid in a glass, etc., as deep as a finger is wide; [a] tot". While the American dictionaries^[3][9] that I looked at only provided more general meanings for finger as a measurement, I am quite sure that the term is used here in relation to alcoholic beverages (and would likely be in more common use than is tot).

15a   Steal the Spanish coin (6)

Nick^[5] is British slang meaning to steal (she nicked fivers from the till).

22a   Let oneself down causing trouble over mad cow disease (6)

The scientific name for mad cow disease is bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)^[5]. Abseil^[5] is the British term for rappel^[5], to descend a rock face or other near-vertical surface by using a doubled rope coiled round the body and fixed at a higher point.

23a   Pain? (6,4)

Pain^[8] is the French word for bread.

25a   Dish featured in red-top abroad (6)

In British slang, a red-top^[4] is a tabloid newspaper characterized by sensationalism [the name coming from the colour of the masthead on these publications].

4d   Money to get sheer wool (8)

Perhaps sheer and mere are synonyms but I would think that they often are used to connote consequences of vastly different significance. For example, mere would be used to downplay the seriousness of a situation (no disrespect meant, it was mere forgetfulness on my part) versus sheer which is used to emphasize the gravity of a circumstance (his dangerous actions amounted to sheer recklessness). However, in some situations they can be used interchangeably (sometimes I complete a puzzle without outside aid, but that can usually be attributed to sheer [or mere] luck).

19d   Organised tour inside walls of sacred place in Gloucestershire (6)

Stroud^[7] is a market town and civil parish in the county of Gloucestershire, England.

References: 
^[1] - The Chambers Dictionary, 11th Edition
^[2] - Search Chambers - (Chambers 21st Century Dictionary)
^[3] - TheFreeDictionary.com (American Heritage Dictionary)
^[4] - TheFreeDictionary.com (Collins English Dictionary)
^[5] - Oxford Dictionaries (Oxford Dictionary of English)
^[6] - Oxford Dictionaries (Oxford American Dictionary)
^[7] - Wikipedia
^[8] - Reverso Online Dictionary (Collins French-English Dictionary)
^[9] - Infoplease (Random House Unabridged Dictionary)

Signing off for today - Falcon