Friday, June 15, 2012 - DT 26826

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26826
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, March 29, 2012
Setter Unknown
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26826]
Big Dave's Review Written By Digby
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

After spending most of the day on the road, I finally got an opportunity to put my feet up and relax with the puzzle. I was a bit intimidated by Digby's characterisation of the puzzle as being "at the high end of difficulty", but I didn't fare too badly with it.

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.

9a   Rudimentary island with nothing beside brewed tea (8)

Inch^[2] is a Scots term, often appearing in place names, meaning a small island.

12a   Frivolous fellow with insolence getting to criticise team’s leader (8)

Fellow^[2] is abbreviated as F^[2] when used in the sense of a member of a learned society.

21a   It’s a team game, therefore cricket club requires one ruling (6)

In Britain, the letters CC would be readily recognized as meaning Cricket Club (just as FC means football club). In his hint, Digby chooses to use Marylebone Cricket Club as an example. The "one ruling" is, of course, our current monarch. By tradition, British monarchs use initials formed from the Latin version of their first name followed by either Rex or Regina (Latin for king or queen, respectively). Thus Queen Elizabeth's initials are ER^[5] - from the Latin Elizabetha Regina.

1d   Movement between points an element in badminton? (7)

In Britain, shuttle^[4] is short for shuttlecock.

3d   Bird circling a river and sailing venue (6)

According to some dictionaries, at least, mina^[2,3] is a variant spelling of myna.

4d   Lorry driver took freight with hand in shift (6,2,3,4)

Knight of the road^[2] is a colloquial, usually facetious term for, among others, a lorry (truck) driver.

5d   Load cook initially found having to cut sign of additives? (8)

E numbers^[7] are codes for chemicals which can be used as food additives for use within the European Union (the "E" prefix stands for "Europe"). They are commonly found on food labels throughout the European Union. Safety assessment and approval are the responsibility of the European Food Safety Authority.

6d   Clean search (5)

I initially had put SWEEP in here. As Digby points out, this proved to be lacking in thoroughness on both counts. It also handicapped me on a couple of the across clues. However, judging by a comment in Digby's review, I was not alone in making this choice.

7d   Equipment with revolutionary name in domestic setting (7)

Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928 – 1967), commonly known as El Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist who was a major figure of the Cuban Revolution.

14d   Public official with colleagues and money in ME country (9)

In Economics, M^[2] is an abbreviation for money supply (used in the UK to designate its seven categories: M0, M1, M2, M3, M3c, M4 and M5; M0 being the most liquid or readily-available category) • broad money, M3, grew by an annualized 9.7 per cent^[5].

18d   Chap taking in road with sun getting discomfort (7)

The A1^[7] is the longest numbered road in the UK, at 410 miles (660 km). It connects London, the capital of England and the United Kingdom, with Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland.

Under the road numbering scheme^[7] used to classify and identify roads in England, Scotland and Wales, each road is assigned a single letter, which represents the road's category, and a subsequent number, with a length of between 1 and 4 digits. Two schemes exist; one for motorways (multi-lane divided highways), and another for non-motorway roads. Motorways are identified by the prefix M, and non-motorway roads by the prefixes A, B, C, D and U (unclassified).

Alternative systems are used in Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man and Jersey, Channel Islands.

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