Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - DT 26673

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26673
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Monday, October 3, 2011
Setter Rufus
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26673]
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 █ - 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
Notes The National Post has skipped DT 26669 through DT 26672 which were published in The Daily Telegraph from Wednesday, September 28, 2011 to Saturday, October 1, 2011

Introduction

As I solved this puzzle, I sensed that it did not feel like the typical Jay puzzle which I was expecting today. This feeling was well-founded as it turns out that it is a Rufus puzzle. For some reason, the National Post has skipped three puzzles that would normally have been published in addition to the Saturday puzzle which it normally skips. While on the whole not a very difficult puzzle, I did not have a clue on 4d - or, more correctly, I should say that I did not have a solution.

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   Nice bit of fluff? Don’t whistle, that’s rude! (11)

Here I resorted to help from a program to generate a list of words matching the checking letters. The first program that I tried returned no hits, but the second program returned a single possibility (which was the correct solution).

12a   Explorer is eating last of sledge dogs (8)

Robert Falcon Scott^[7] (1868 – 1912) was a Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition, 1901–04, and the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition, 1910–13. During this second venture, Scott led a party of five which reached the South Pole on 17 January 1912, only to find that they had been preceded by Roald Amundsen's Norwegian expedition. On their return journey, Scott and his four comrades all perished from a combination of exhaustion, starvation and extreme cold.

13a   Don went down with a cry of pain (6)

In Britain, a fellow^[5] is an incorporated senior member of a college and a don^[5] is a university teacher, especially a senior member of a college at Oxford or Cambridge. I may be wrong but I suspect that the word "incorporated" may refer to the individual's status as a member of the governing body of the college.

At Colleges of the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Trinity College, Dublin, full fellows form the governing body of the college. They may elect a Council to handle day-to-day management. All fellows are entitled to certain privileges within their colleges, which may include dining at High Table (free of charge) and possibly the right to a room in college (free of charge).^[7]

23a   Individual away from work, just this once (3-3)

One-off^[5] is a British term that can be used both as an adjective, meaning done, made, or happening only once (a one-off benefit show) or as noun, denoting (1) something done, made, or happening only once (the meeting is a one-off) or (2) a unique or remarkable person (he’s a one-off, no one else has his skills).

27a   Allows real changes in better systems (9)

"Better systems" is a (deliberately misleading) cryptic way of saying, in Libellule's words, "systems of betting on horse races". The Tote^[5] (a British trademark) is a system of betting based on the use of the totalizator, in which dividends are calculated according to the amount staked rather than odds offered (he has taken a risk with the tote).

1d   One of many carried by the caddy (3,4)

A caddy^[5] (also tea caddy) is a chiefly British term for a small tin in which tea is kept for daily use.

4d   This way for a place? You bet! (4)

Each-way^[5] is a British term related to betting on races. It may be either an adjective or adverb, and describes a bet divided into two equal wagers, one backing a horse or other competitor to win and the other backing it to finish in the first three. As an adjective, a usage example might be "he could be worth an each-way bet" while, as an adverb "we put the same bet each way on a horse". As an adjective, it can also mean to come first, second, or third in a race, considered from a betting point of view (Travado has an each-way chance). Even having learned this much, the clue was still incomprehensible to me - but there is yet more to discover.

In Britain, place^[5] means any of the first three or sometimes four positions in a race (used especially of the second, third, or fourth positions). In North America, on the other hand, place^[5] means the second position. With that bit of information, the meaning of the clue suddenly becomes clear.

5d   Gloomy, although recovered from eye problem (8)

According to Oxford, a cast^[5] is a slight squint (he had a cast in one eye) while Collins defines it as a fixed twist or defect, especially in the eye^[4].

6d   The fall that followed Eve (5)

The correct solution became quite obvious once I had generated a list of words matching the checking letters.

16d   Crank, socially and mechanically (9)

We are looking for an adjective that would apply to crank in both its social context and its mechanical context. Thus a person who might be deemed to be a crank is one who is eccentric^[5] (unconventional and slightly strange) while a crank is a mechanical device in which a part (e.g., a handle) is not located in line with the axis of rotation - i.e., this part is said to be eccentric (with respect to the axis of rotation).

17d   One whose pictures attract lots of admiration (4,4)

This is one of those cryptic definitions that only seems cryptic if you happen to have fallen for the element of deception. In this clue, we are likely expected to think of an esteemed photographer, perhaps. However, the element of deception is pretty weak and if motion picture was the first image to come to mind, the clue hardly seems cryptic at all.

25d   A pound’s put on for services (4)

My difficulty with this clue has no rational explanation. I am positive that I ran the correct solution through my mind and dismissed it as not being a word - despite, I am sure, having encountered it innumerable times. It was only when I saw it in a list of words matching the checking letters that it finally clicked in that this really is a word.

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