Thursday, February 23, 2012 - DT 26729

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26729
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Setter Jay
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26729]
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

We have yet another fairly gentle puzzle today. Are we being set up for a real humdinger?

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.

21a   Head of city might love reporter’s finish (5)

Hover your cursor over the picture that Pommers uses to illustrate this clue and you will see that it is of Boris Johnson^[7], the Mayor of London, England.

23a   Almost complete support for teacher exercising authority (9)

In Britain, a male schoolteacher is known as a master^[5].

I had a similar thought about this clue as Pommers - feeling that it may have begun life as a down clue and been forced into playing the role of an across clue.

25a   Joker comes back with shapeless formula for novel (7)

Dracula^[7] is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker^[7].

26a   Improve at university level (7)

In Britain, up^[5] means at or to a university, especially Oxford or Cambridge : they were up at Cambridge about the same time.

4d   Attack yobbo hugging tree (4,3)

Yobbo^[5] is another term for yob^[5] (back slang for boy), both being informal British terms for a rude, noisy, and aggressive youth.

8d   Channels good for money in golf clubs? (7)

In Britain, pence^[5] is a plural form of penny. Oxford advises that both pence and pennies have existed as plural forms of penny since at least the 16th century. The two forms now tend to be used for different purposes: pence refers to sums of money (five pounds and sixty-nine pence; ) while pennies refers to the coins themselves (I left two pennies on the table; ). The use of pence rather than penny as a singular (the chancellor will put one pence on income tax) is not regarded as correct in standard English.

In Britain's current decimal currency system, a penny^[5] is a bronze coin and monetary unit equal to one hundredth of a pound (and is abbreviated p). In the system formerly used, a penny was equal to one twelfth of a shilling or 240th of a pound (and was abbreviated d, for denarius).

14d   Takeaways that might spoil the canines? (5,4)

In Britain, takeaway^[5] can mean either (1) a restaurant or shop selling cooked food to be eaten elsewhere • (i) a fast-food takeaway; (ii) [as modifier] a takeaway pizza or (2) a meal or dish bought from a shop or restaurant to be eaten elsewhere • (i) he phoned for a takeaway; (ii) he is happy to eat Chinese takeaway. The equivalent North American term is takeout^[5].

16d   Herald compiler on ship turning green! (9)

By convention, the appearance of terms such as "compiler" or "setter" in a clue is often a reference to the creator of the puzzle, in which case these words generally must be replaced in the solution by a first person pronoun such as "I" or (as is the case today) "ME".

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