Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - DT 26754

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26754
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, January 5, 2012
Setter Ray T
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26754]
Big Dave's Review Written By Big Dave
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

Although Ray T delivers a fairly easy puzzle today, an error at 5d handicapped me on 22a - compounding the fact that this was my first encounter with a certain promiscuous British woman.

Meet the Setter

The entry in Crossword Who's Who for today's setter, Ray Terrell, is both brief and out of date (unless the situation has changed yet again).

Ray Terrell lives in Paris, where he teaches English to French journalists and broadcasters. He sets Tuesday crosswords for The Daily Telegraph and - as Beam - Toughie crosswords in the same newspaper.

At one time, Ray T - the screen name he uses when visiting Big Dave's Crossword Blog - did set puzzles for the Tuesday edition of The Daily Telegraph but for some time now his puzzles have been published on Thursdays (appearing roughly every second week).

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.

20a   Lav and toilet endlessly turned explosive (8)

In Britain, lav^[10] is an informal short form for lavatory.

22a   Slapper clutching ends of grotesque butt (6)

Slapper^[5] is an informal, derogatory British term for a promiscuous or vulgar woman. The error at 5d held me up in getting a grip on this one.

5d   Lighting up? (10)

I had all the checking letters save the last, but did myself no favours by entering THUNDERING which I convinced myself might somehow be related to "lighting up". This quite messed me up on 22a.

19d   English pound up under Iron Lady (6)

The symbol for the chemical element iron is Fe^[5].

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