Wednesday, May 23, 2012 - DT 26808

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26808
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, March 8, 2012
Setter Ray T
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26808]
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

It's classic Ray T fare today - a bit of naughty wordplay and an appearance by Her Majesty (symbolising the setter's favourite band).

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   Writer’s career decline (7)

Salman Rushdie^[7] is a British Indian novelist and essayist whose fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), was the centre of a major controversy, provoking protests from Muslims in several countries, some violent. Death threats were made against him, including a fatwā issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran.

10a   Tarts consuming spirit showing jugs (7)

I must say that Big Dave exercised remarkable restraint in his choice of illustration.

11a   Management finish around four (9)

I thought that "finish" might be a synonym for "execute" in the sense that a mob boss might use the word in discussing the fate of someone who had crossed him.

12a   Small tool generating offspring (5)

Is our setter stating the case that "size doesn't matter" when it comes to procreation?

13a   Pips best players (5)

Not understanding the details of the seeding process, my first reaction was that seeds are not necessarily the best players. However, according to Wikipedia, "only the top 32 players are seeded" in Tennis Grand Slam tournaments^[7].

19a   Buddhist belief gets you more serene, say (5)

As pronounced by at least some Brits, 'calmer' (more serene) would sound like (say) 'karma'. You can listen to the British pronunciations of these words and compare them to the American pronunciations at the following links (calmer, karma). As with any homophone clue, I am sure that speakers of some of the fifty or so dialects of British English will object to the clue.

25a   Cloudiness over outskirts of Palma town (7)

On cricket scorecards, O^[5] appears as an abbreviation for over^[5], 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.

3d   It’s goodbye to Sarkozy! (5)

This clue appeared in Britain prior to the recent French elections in which now former French President Nicolas Sarkozy^[7] went down to defeat. Big Dave had commented at the time "is this cryptic definition of the French for goodbye wishful thinking on the part of our setter, who lives in Paris?" Or.on the other hand, did our setter cast a spell.

6d   Initially sits on knees with instant horseplay (9)

Tick^[3,4] is a chiefly British term meaning a moment or instant.

14d   Stunning bird hugging tank top (9)

In Britain, bird^[5] is an informal term for a young woman or a man’s girlfriend.

17d   Taxing is useless under old Italian leader (7)

Displaying a bit of misguided ingenuity, I concluded that the US came from truncating (less) the word USE. Not so, apparently. U/S (or u/s)^[1] is an abbreviation for unserviceable – as I eventually discovered in The Chambers Dictionary, 11th Edition.

20d   Excessive common sense shown by rugby union international (7)

Nous is an informal British term meaning common sense or practical intelligence • if he had any nous at all, he’d sell the film rights. Rugby union (RU)^[5] is a form of rugby played in teams of fifteen, in contrast to rugby league^[5], which is played in teams of thirteen.

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