Thursday, August 16, 2012 - DT 26881

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26881
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Friday, June 1, 2012
Setter Giovanni
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26881]
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

I ran into a bit of heavy going along the bottom edge of the puzzle — until I found the right piece of equipment to smooth the way.

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   Beast with personality is going with the upwardly mobile classes (11)

Big Dave comments "the use of “is going with the upwardly mobile” for “is going up” is a bit clunky". On the other hand, a clue reading "Beast with personality is going up classes" is hardly very elegant, is it?

7a   Caretaker has rubbish taken back after start of year (7)

Rot^[5] is a chiefly British term meaning nonsense or rubbish^[5] (absurd, nonsensical, or worthless talk or ideas) • don’t talk rot.

The first day of the year in ancient Rome would be Jan. I, would it not?

14a   Bad effects maybe following a school period? (10)

In Britain, the short form for mathematics is maths^[5] ([as modifier] her mother was a maths teacher), rather than math^[5] as it is in North America (she teaches math and science).

Aside from having to deal with the British version of the school subject, I was also held up for a bit by an incorrect entry at 9d.

22a   The bloke’s in a den — it’s tacky (8)

Big Dave does say in his introduction that he is still suffering the effects from a trip to London, so I think we can forgive his statement "a hyphenated word meaning the bloke’s" when he actually means an apostrophised word.

24a   There’s elegance about this writer’s contorted expression (7)

It is a common cryptic crossword convention for the creator of the puzzle to use terms such as setter, compiler, author, or writer to refer to himself or herself. To solve such a clue, one must usually substitute a first person pronoun (I or me) for whichever of these terms has been used  in the clue.  Today, the setter adds a bit of a wrinkle as we must substitute "I'm" (I am) for "writer's" (writer is).

26a   Restore mall that’s broken up — using this finally? (5-6)

Mall^[4] is used here in the sense of a shaded avenue, especially one that is open to the public, rather than its more common meaning in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as a short form for shopping mall. [Judging by the dictionary entries, the Brits would appear to use the long form "shopping mall" but not the shorter form "mall".]

1d   Income changes over time — not much money here though (7)

A centimo^[5] is a monetary unit of a number of Latin American countries (and formerly of Spain), equal to one hundredth of the basic unit.

9d   Business operation in which branches will be reduced (4,7)

I initially entered TREE NURSERY here which I justified on the basis that the branches would be reduced since they had not yet had the opportunity to fully develop. This answer correctly matched all the checking letters save the final letter of 14a which, needless to say, caused me a bit of grief on that clue.

19d   Just the sort of agitator to create a storm in a teacup? (7)

In Britain, a person who deliberately causes trouble between others by spreading rumours or gossip would be known as a stirrer^[5].

20d   Skin’s burning up — pain in Nice (6)

The definition is "skin's" (and not merely "skin"). Thus the solution is an adjective (rather than a noun). Mal^[8] is the French word for ache (or pain).

23d   When there’s no holiday in winter months (4)

Oxford Dictionaries defines term as each of the periods in the year, alternating with holiday or vacation, during which instruction is given in a school, college, or university, or during which a law court holds sessions • (i) the summer term; (ii) term starts tomorrow. It seems clear that holiday is used in this definition in the sense of an extended period of leisure and recreation, especially one spent away from home or in travelling (often holidays when used in this sense) rather than a day of festivity or recreation when no work is done. The former sense is chiefly a British usage for which Americans would use the term vacation. In Canada, I would say that the two terms (holiday and vacation) are used interchangeably. For some strange reason, Oxford Dictionaries characterises the word "holiday" (in all senses) as being chiefly British when it is fairly evident that it is only one sense of the word that is British (or more correctly, not US).

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