Wednesday, December 14, 2011 - DT 26663

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26663
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Setter Jay
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26663]
Big Dave's Review Written By Pommers
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

Perhaps having reviewed (for Big Dave's blog) the puzzle (also by Jay) which appears in today's edition of The Daily Telegraph put me on the right wavelength. In any event, my Tool Chest sat ignored on the shelf today.

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.

1a   Look agitated following massacre (8,4)

Here we find a new (to me, at least) - but fairly obvious - British expression. Butcher's hook^[5] is Cockney rhyming slang for look. In practice, only the first word would be used, so "to have a butcher's" means "to take a look" as in "Have a butcher's before I put it back on the shelf."

18a   Merry king’s rule for cabbage in salad (8)

Perhaps "cabbage in salad" is a British turn of phrase, but it sounds odd to my ear as the definition here. I would have said either "cabbage salad" or "salad made from cabbage". Perhaps "cabbage in salad" is equivalent to saying "cabbage made into salad" or "cabbage in the form of salad".

26a   Food account put into good French (5)

A butty (or buttie)^[5] - a term which appears in Pommers' review - is a Northern English expression meaning a filled or open sandwich. The example used by Oxford is "a bacon butty" - as is the illustration chosen by Pommers. The origin of the word is butter plus -y (a suffix used to form diminutive nouns, pet names, etc.). Daddies^[7] (also referred to by Pommers) is a brand of ketchup and brown sauce in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. The brown sauce is similar to HP Sauce, but without tamarind, without tomatoes and with less malt vinegar but more spirit vinegar.

I presume the name of the sandwich comes from the fact that it is a buttered sandwich. My experience on a visit to Scotland was that a sandwich would not necessarily be buttered unless one specifically requested it. While the quality of the food in Scotland was almost always excellent, I do recall lunch on my first day there. Short on time, I decided to grab a sandwich. It was made on the spot and consisted of some very dry roast beef carved from the end of a roast that likely had not seen a knife in days placed between two slabs of stale bread with no butter, no mustard, no mayonnaise, no HP sauce, no Daddies, no nothing. It was about as appetizing as a piece of shoe leather between two pieces of cardboard. Thankfully, the culinary experience improved markedly from that point on.

6d   Honours even at first, but carrying too much weight (5)

 The honourees today will each receive an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire).

7d   A vehicle loaded into orbiter may supply snack (8)

This clue conjures up an image of some futuristic mobile canteen making the rounds of workplaces on the moon.

16d   Two firms admitting hotel student consumed sweet (9)

In Crosswordland, the symbol for student is L (based on the L-plate that must be affixed to vehicles driven by student drivers in Britain).

18d   First of children with spouse is nearly 6 (6)

The numeral 6 in the clue is a cross-reference to clue 6d. In order to obtain the complete clue, one must substitute the solution to 6d in place of the cross-reference indicator. As there is only one clue numbered 6 in the puzzle, the setter does not need to distinguish between 6a and 6d (there being no 6a).

25d   Cure for a dry sense of humour (4)

In the sense in which it is used in this clue, salt^[3][4] may have a somewhat different connotation on opposite sides of the Atlantic. The American Heritage Dictionary gives one meaning as "[a]n element that gives flavor or zest" which could be a reasonable counterpart to an entry in Collins English Dictionary, namely "liveliness or pungency (his wit added salt to the discussion)". However, the next definition in the American dictionary is "[s]harp lively wit", whereas in the British dictionary it is "dry or laconic wit". Thus, to adapt this clue to North American parlance, perhaps it should read:

• Cure for a lively sense of humour (4)

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