Tuesday, February 7, 2012 - DT 26715

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26715
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Monday, November 21, 2011
Setter Rufus
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26715]
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 26714 which was published in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday, November 19, 2011

Introduction

Several of the regulars at Big Dave's blog often advise setting the puzzle aside when one reaches an impasse and returning to it at a later time. This seemed to work brilliantly for me today. With progress having ground to a halt with a half dozen clues remaining to be solved, I followed the advice. When I picked up the puzzle a couple of hours latter, the remaining clues quickly fell into place - led off by the British electoral expression at 1a.

Last week I provided a link to an interview with Roger Squires (aka Rufus) at the Crossword Unclued website. If you enjoyed that article, you might also like to read Meet the Telegraph's cryptic crossword maestro. 

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   Elector all at sea? (8,5)

In Britain, a person who has not decided which way to vote in an election, or one who does not consistently vote for the same political party is known as a floating voter^[5] • the party leader stepped up his efforts to appeal to floating voters.

10a   Girl meets chap, starts talking, but is unyielding (7)

When Di and Stan proved to be a rather aloof couple, I had to seek out another pair.

12a   Three students seen around university in break (4)

In cryptic crossword puzzles, words such as "new driver", "student", and "learner" are code-words for L – from the L-plate^[7] that must be displayed on vehicles driven by a learner driver^[5] (also known as a learner^[2]) in Britain. While regular readers are likely tired of seeing this definition repeated, I have to work on the assumption that there may well be new readers who are not acquainted with this convention.

19a   Alpine flower (7)

Yet another cryptic crossword convention is that flower often means a river (something that flows). Today, in a bit of a novel twist, it is a river of ice.

25a   This one’s a real stinker! (5)

Libellule wonders "Cryptic?", seemingly suggesting that this clue is less than outstanding. In addition to the cryptic definition involving the smelly animal, I think we may be intended to read the clue as if it were an aside from the setter to the solver meaning "This clue's a real stinker!". If stinker^[4] is interpreted in the sense of something of very poor quality, then it seems to me that the clue is actually rather clever!

Note: I wrote this before reading the comments at Big Dave's blog. Now that I've had an opportunity to peruse the comments there, I see that Nestorius has expressed a very similar view.

26a   Plan to put a pound in the kitty (4)

The pound^[5] (also pound sterling) is the basic monetary unit of the UK, equal to 100 pence. The proper symbol for the pound is £, but it seems that this is often written as L^[4].

23d   Labels for matches (7)

Not a specifically British usage - but a new one to me - a tally^[3] is a label, ticket, or piece of metal or wood used for identification or classification, especially in gardens and greenhouses.

28d   A king on way up to be an emperor (4)

Rex^[4] (Latin for king, abbreviated as R^[5]) is part of the official title of a king, now used chiefly in documents, legal proceedings, and inscriptions on coins. It may be used following a name (e.g. Georgius Rex, or GR, for King George^[5]) or in the titles of lawsuits, e.g. Rex v. Jones: the Crown versus Jones^[5] [which would often be written simply as R. vs Jones].

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)
^[10] - CollinsDictionary.com (Collins English Dictionary)

Signing off for today - Falcon