Monday, January 30, 2012 - DT 26707

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26707
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Friday, November 11, 2011
Setter Giovanni
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26707]
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

I needed a bit of electronic help today - primarily due to being hampered by a long-running British soap opera with which I had no previous acquaintance.

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.

5a   A roguish one about to become lawless (8)

To my eye, Gazza's hint would seem to fail to account for all the letters in the solution (but I may be reading it incorrectly). Roguish^[5] is used in the sense of playfully mischievous. "A roguish (something)" would be AN ARCH (something) with the article A becoming AN (thus accounting for the missing N). I do see that this is clarified in the course of some discussion in the comments section on Big Dave's site.

9a   Oxford college’s rustic porch is vandalised (6,7)

Although I had never heard of the college, it is fairly obvious that the wordplay is an anagram and I was able to work out the correct solution. Corpus Christi College^[7] (corporate designation The President and Scholars of the College of Corpus Christi in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

10a   Disallow sin in botanical body (8)

The first word to come to mind was OVERTURN which fit the definition but did not work in any other capacity. It did, however, hobble progress for a bit in the northwest corner.

27a   Emma is one English maiden stabling horse (6)

In cricket, a maiden, also known as a maiden over, (abbreviation M)^[5] is an over in which no runs are scored. An over^[5] is a division of play consisting of a sequence of six balls bowled by a bowler from one end of the pitch, after which another bowler takes over from the other end.

2d   Get better engineers on top of roof? (7)

The Royal Engineers (RE)^[5] is the name of the field engineering and construction corps of the British army.

3d   One for ventilating anger in middle of Carmarthen (5)

Carmarthen^[7] is a community in, and the county town of, Carmarthenshire, Wales. It lays claim to being the oldest town in Wales.

5d   Walkers heading off may be country folk (7)

Even after getting the correct solution, the definition remained a complete mystery to me. The Archers^[7] is a long-running British soap opera broadcast on the BBC's main spoken-word channel, Radio 4. It was originally billed as "an everyday story of country folk", but is now described on its Radio 4 web site as "contemporary drama in a rural setting". With over 16,600 episodes, it is both the world's longest running radio soap and, since the axing of the American soap opera Guiding Light in September 2009, the world's longest running soap opera in any format.

13d   Pumped for information, being exposed down below maybe?! (9)

Recognizing what a magnificent opportunity that this clue provided to Gazza for creative illustration, I turned with eager anticipation to Big Dave's site. Alas, the opportunity must indeed have been far too tempting as the illustration (much commented upon on Big Dave's blog) seems to have been removed. Is it time to reactivate the "Stop Censorship" campaign?

20d   Weird upper-class grandma enthralling children at the outset (7)

In Britain, U^[5] is used informally as an adjective with respect to language or social behaviour meaning characteristic of or appropriate to the upper social classes (U manners). The term, an abbreviation of  upper class, was coined in 1954 by Alan S. C. Ross, professor of linguistics, and popularized by its use in Nancy Mitford's Noblesse Oblige (1956).

24d   Beast in river almost squashing duck (5)

In cricket, a duck^[5] is a batsman’s score of nought • he was out for a duck. In cryptic crossword puzzles, duck often indicates O as the letter "O" looks like the number "0".

Key to Reference Sources: 

^[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