Tuesday, July 31, 2012 - DT 26867

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26867
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Setter Jay (Jeremy Mutch)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26867]
Big Dave's Review Written By Pommers
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

You shouldn't find today's offering from Jay to be too taxing.

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.

11a   A way into church offering social status (5)

The Church of England (abbreviation CE)^[5] is the English branch of the Western Christian Church, which combines Catholic and Protestant traditions, rejects the Pope’s authority, and has the monarch as its titular head. The English Church was part of the Catholic Church until the Reformation of the 16th century; after Henry VIII failed to obtain a divorce from Catherine of Aragon he repudiated papal supremacy, bringing the Church under the control of the Crown.

17a   Careless broadcast shows needs (5)

Was Pommers being a bit careless when he wrote his hint, "This word for needs is a homophone (broadcast) of a word meaning careless or negligent."? I can't think of any homophone such as he describes. I saw the wordplay as an anagram (broadcast) of SLACK (careless).

20a   Hope game has primarily got something for devotees (6,3)

I was sure that the devotees here were sports fans — rather than religious adherents — which threw me well off track.

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.

25a   Ring, and yearn to express a view (5)

The use of the word "ring" to clue the letter O is known as a visual clue^[7]. Single letter visual clues are fairly common (others being the use of "love" and "duck" to clue the letter O, since "love" is a score of 0 in tennis or squash and duck is a batsman's score of 0 in cricket, and the number 0 looks like the letter O). However, multi-letter visual clues (other than simple plurals of those already mentioned) are less common. The most commonly encountered one is likely the use of the word "spectacles" to clue OO — which looks like a drawing of a pair of spectacles.

27a   Shade’s a bit circumspect, really (7)

A new meaning for me, shade^[5] is a literary term for a ghost • the ghost is the shade of Lucy Walters, first mistress of Charles II.

28a   Cards on the table? Heard why party is in part of garden (3-4)

In Britain, a garden^[5] is defined as a piece of ground adjoining a house, typically cultivated to provide a lawn and flowerbeds. Thus a British garden is equivalent to a North American yard, and encompasses the lawn as well as the flower beds.

7d   Resident’s final check on bingo call (9)

The British version of bingo^[7] bears very little resemblance to the North American game of the same name (or one might say that they are about as similar as cricket and baseball). The British game (formerly called housey-housey) and the North American version both involve matching numbers drawn at random to those on tickets (Britain) or cards (North America). However, the format of British tickets is totally different from that of North American cards — and, consequently, so are the winning combinations. In Britain, it is common for winners to yell "House!" (rather than "Bingo!") when a winning combination is attained.

There is some discussion on Big Dave's blog concerning the use of "on" as a charade indicator. Here, it is used in the sense of 'added to' as 'a wing on a house'. When used in this fashion, "B on A" becomes AB (the rationale being that in order to add B to A, you first need to write A and then add B, with English text being written left to right). In a down clue, "on" could also mean 'on top of' with "B on A" then being BA (B written on top of A in a down clue). While the former usage is equally meaningful in either an across or a down clue, the latter clearly applies only in a down clue. Some people hold that the former usage should not be used in a down clue in that it creates ambiguity as to which interpretation is the correct one. Given that the objective of a cryptic crossword compiler is to create misdirection, this element of ambiguity would hardly seem unfair. In fact, there are any number of words which can have multiple meanings in cryptic puzzles. One example is the word "without" which can mean either 'lacking' or 'outside of'. Another is the word "about" which can sometimes be an anagram indicator, sometimes a containment indicator, or sometimes it is charade fodder (cluing any of the abbreviations C, CA or RE).

8d   Italy invested in grant for such a tree (7)

The International Vehicle Registration (IVR) code for Italy is I^[5].

15d   Drunken binge — rue a pickled vegetable! (9)

Aubergine^[5] is the British name for eggplant. My thoughts concerning the double anagram indicator closely paralleled those of Pommers. While aubergine can be pickled (per this recipe from Jamie Oliver), Pommers is likely correct in thinking that the two words (drunken and pickled) are included mainly to enhance the surface reading.

17d   Better protected by circuits in computers (7)

"Better" here is a verb, used in the sense "Athletes in London hope to better their previous results."

22d   Collapsed on top of lump hammer (5)

A lump hammer^[10] (which I suspect is a British term) would seem to be a mini version of a sledgehammer — similar in appearance, but with a shorter handle and smaller head.

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