Tuesday, March 20, 2012 - DT 26753

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26753
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Setter Jay
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26753]
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

For the second time this week, we are presented with a fairly easy challenge. I nearly threw in the towel with one clue remaining unsolved, but at the last moment I finally saw the plant hiding in 2d.

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   What a snooker coach does for a transport enthusiast (12)

In Britain, a trainspotter^[5] is a person who collects train or locomotive numbers as a hobby. It is also often used in a derogatory sense to refer to a person who obsessively studies the minutiae of any minority interest or specialized hobby • the idea is to make the music really really collectable so the trainspotters will buy it in their pathetic thousands.

9a   People pushing for diamonds and flowers? (7)

In the cryptic reading, diamonds refers to the suit of cards and flowers means rivers (according to cryptic crossword logic, rivers being things that flow).

11a   Discard players out of form (4,3)

I like Pommers explanation much better than my initial analysis. I had somewhat lazily supposed that the second word might be hidden (indicated by "out") in OF Form. In retrospect, this idea strikes me as even less plausible than it appeared at the time.

12a   Raise a source of tension in most of team (7)

The key here is to choose a sport that works. Cricket, association football (soccer) or American football are all good. Unfortunately, Canadian football - having twelve players per team - is not.

16a   Bent receiver has nothing to make a home (9)

In Britain, bent^[5] is an informal term meaning dishonest or corrupt • a bent cop. In North America, we would say crooked rather than bent.

24a   Leak from diocesan attendant? (7)

A see^[5] is the place in which a cathedral church stands, identified as the seat of authority of a bishop or archbishop.

25a   Popular and hard unionist chap getting brutal (7)

H^[5] is the abbreviation for hard, as used in describing grades of pencil lead • a 2H pencil. U^[2] is the abbreviation for unionist^[2] which might refer to (1) an advocate or supporter of unionism, especially as a system of social or political organization; (2) (Unionist) a supporter of the federal union of the United States, especially at the time of the American Civil War; (3) (sometimes Unionist) before 1920, a supporter of the Union of all Ireland and Great Britain or, since 1920, a supporter of the union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; (4) a supporter of the continued political union between Scotland, England and Wales; or (5) an advocate or supporter of trade unions, a trade-unionist.

19d   Charlie hates being without a number of things to wear (7)

Charlie^[5] is a code word representing the letter C, used in radio communication.

22d   Appears to need time for European checks (5)

Jay typically includes at least one of these substitution style clues in his puzzles. Start with SEEMS (appears) and substitute (to need ... for) T (time) in place of E (European) to get STEMS (checks; meaning stops). Of course, we are left to determine which of the two Europeans to replace - but that is not very difficult to figure out.

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