Tuesday, December 6, 2011 - DT 26656

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26656
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Setter Unknown
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26656]
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

Again today, I needed to call on my electronic assistants for their help on two clues - 12a (despite having recently come across the Briticism in the clue in another puzzle) and 5d. Similar to yesterday, there are not a lot of Briticisms in the puzzle.

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.

10a   Heard Queen’s restricted by unusual diet (5)

Regina^[5] (abbreviation R^[5]) denotes the reigning queen, used following a name (e.g. Elizabetha Regina, Queen Elizabeth) or in the titles of lawsuits (e.g. Regina v. Jones, the Crown versus Jones).

12a   Food time (8)

Porridge^[5] is an informal British expression meaning time spent in prison (I'm sweating it out doing porridge).

15a   Appeared to get marks in university qualification overturned (7)

Until the introduction of the euro in 2002, the mark^[5] (also Deutschmark or Deutsche mark^[5]) was the basic monetary unit of Germany, equal to 100 pfennig. In the first case, the abbreviation is M^[2], while in the latter it may be DM or D-mark^[2].

21a   Julius Caesar could be seen here and there entertaining leaders of all territories (7)

Julius Caesar^[5] refers to the tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1599.

24a   Note lawsuit’s response (8)

In Britain, it would seem, re^[5] is a variant spelling for the name of the the second note of a major scale in tonic sol-fa with the principal spelling being ray^[5]. In North America, I believe that only the former spelling is used.

27a   Chief’s armpit not fresh (9)

As Gazza alludes to with his illustration for this clue, apparently former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was known for his sweaty underarms (read more).

8d   Engineer screwed in new glass on car (10)

Gazza saw the clue as a straight anagram with the wordplay being an anagram (engineer) of SCREWED IN N(ew), while I thought it might be a hybrid (anagram/charade) clue with the wordplay being an anagram of SCREWED IN + N(ew). Whatever the setter had in mind, both interpretations lead to the same result, namely WINDSCREEN (windscreen^[5] being the British term for a windshield).

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)

Signing off for today - Falcon