Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - DT 26835

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26835
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Monday, April 9, 2012
Setter Rufus
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26835]
Big Dave's Review Written By Libellule
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
Notes The National Post has skipped DT 26834 which was published in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday, April 7, 2012

Introduction

Rufus puts us through a fairly gentle workout today. Despite having been published in the UK on Easter Monday, today's puzzle is not themed to that day.

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   Is covered in bread crumbs and cooked (7)

Although I had to think a bit about "crumbs" as an anagram indicator, it does work very well. The "bread crumbs" would, of course, be the individual letters spelling the word "bread". If you cover something in crumbs, the crumbs are naturally rearranged from the pattern that they occupied in the original substance that was crumbled to produce them.

11a   Errors in field may cause defeats (10)

The solution is a cricket term that is also equally applicable in baseball.

14a   Here come dots, dashed! (3,5,4)

This is an all-in-one clue in which the entire clue is both definition and wordplay. While the definition certainly seems to be more than a tad whimsical, the setter excuses himself with an exclamation point.

21a   Number taking turn at party game (4)

Ludo^[5] is the British name for a simple game in which players move counters round a board according to throws of a dice. It is a somewhat simplified version of the Indian game Pachisi. In the US, the game is commonly known as Parcheesi.^[7] While the later name likely predominates in Canada, I do recall as a child having a Ludo game (part of a compendium of board games almost certainly imported from the UK).

27a   Billy’s mates who are good with children? (7)

I really think that this clue would have been better had it been phrased as "Billy’s mates who are good with kids?" Perhaps the setter thought that would make the answer too obvious – but it could hardly be more obvious than it is already.

4d   A number finished the port (5)

Dover^[7] is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and is the home of the Dover Calais ferry.

6d   Efficient island uprising (4)

Elba^[7] is a Mediterranean island in Tuscany, Italy, located in the Tyrrhenian Sea about 20 kilometres (12 mi) from the Tuscan coastal town of Piombino and 50 kilometres (30 mi) east of the French island of Corsica. Elba is the third largest island in Italy, after Sicily and Sardinia. Elba is best known as the spot to which French emperor Napoleon I was exiled from May 1814 to February 1815.

13d   It enabled Queen Victoria to stick to her post (5,5)

Post^[5] is a British term for the mail, the official service or system that delivers letters and parcels. The Penny Black^[7] was the world's first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. It was issued in Britain on 1 May 1840 and bore an image of Queen Victoria in profile.

16d   A host of local supporters (8)

In Britain, a publican is a person who owns or manages a pub. A host (especially in the phrase 'mine host') is a humorous term for the landlord or landlady of a pub • mine host raised his glass of whisky. A local^[7] is a pub convenient to a person’s home. Thus "local supporters" are patrons of a pub.

17d   Mother angled craftily for a place at Oxford (8)

Magdalen College^[7] is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England.

19d   Cycles along quiet winding dales (6)

The musical direction piano (abbreviation p)^[5] makes its fourth appearance in seven days.

20d   The single boy in a family is very much a favourite (4,2)

Odd^[5] can be an adjective denoting a single goal by which one side defeats another, especially where each side scores at least once • they lost a close-fought game by the odd goal in five.

23d   Desist from mounting watch? (5)

Aside from its well-known (to me, at least) meaning of to send (money, payment, etc.), as for goods or service, especially by post (mail), remit^[4] has a number of other meanings among which is to cancel or refrain from exacting (a penalty or punishment).

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