Tuesday, September 4, 2012 - DT 26897

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26897
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Setter Jay (Jeremy Mutch)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26897]
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

Today's very enjoyable puzzle is unmistakeably a Jay creation. It has a couple of substitution clues — 19a and 3d — which are a specialty of his, as well as lots of clues requiring the manipulation of the first, last, interior or exterior letters of words.

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.

6a   Bound to drink over weekend (4)

Here the word "weekend" must be factored into two components, namely "week" (which acts as fodder) and "end" (which serves as a letter selection indicator). The result 'week end' clues the final letter (end) of weeK.

We often see this sort of device used with "sweetheart" which is used to indicate the middle letter (heart) of swEet and "redhead" which denotes the first letter (head) of Red.

Pommers illustrates this clue with a picture of a skip^[5] — the British name for a dumpster^[5], a large transportable open-topped container for building and other refuse ⇒I’ve salvaged a carpet from a skip.

19a   Survived, and guaranteed to have daughter for Christmas at last (7)

This substitution style clue is a specialty of Jay.

22a   Mayhem created by poor chav full of love (5)

In Britain, chav^[5] is an informal, derogatory term for a young lower-class person typified by brash and loutish behaviour and the wearing of (real or imitation) designer clothes. In tennis, squash, and some other sports, love^[5] is a score of zero or nil ⇒ love fifteen. The resemblance of a zero written as a number (0) to the letter O leads to the cryptic crossword convention of love equating to this letter.

28a   Some worried about the end of another walrus (5)

In The Chambers Dictionary, 11th Edition (and nowhere else that I could find), morse^[1] is listed as another name for the walrus. Pommers illustrates the clue with a picture of British actor John Thaw in the role of Chief Inspector Endeavour Morse from the British detective drama television series, Inspector Morse. The series, based on a series of novels by Colin Dexter, ran for seven seasons from 1987 to 1993 (with 5 follow-on specials).

In case you missed it, the solutions to 27a and 28a combine to give ENDEAVOUR MORSE (the name of said detective).

29a   Go round (4)

This was also the last in for me and I needed a bit of help from my electronic assistants to narrow down the list of potential candidates.

1d   International trial? (4)

In Britain, an international^[5] is a game or contest between teams representing different countries in a sport ⇒ the Murrayfield rugby international. A Test (short for Test match)^[5] is an international cricket or rugby match, typically one of a series, played between teams representing two different countries ⇒ the Test match between Pakistan and the West Indies.

It would appear that Jay has reused some elements from a previous clue in a slightly different fashion. In DT 26873 (National Post, August 7, 2012), he gave us:

• 16d   Demonstrates against, and in favour of, internationals (8)

2d   Drove out former soldiers caught on wrong side (9)

In the British armed forces, all those who are not commissioned officers are referred to as other ranks (abbreviation OR)^[5]. On cricket scorecards, the abbreviation c^[5] indicates caught (by) ⇒ ME Waugh c Lara b Walsh 19.

3d   Cancel, with victory for ET’s research (5)

Sometimes one gets a thought in one's head and nothing will get rid of it. I equated "cancel" with dele^[5], an action by a proofreader to delete or mark (a part of a text) for deletion. This left me with no explanation for ET — or for how the V gets inserted.

4d   Down-to-earth beings, motorists accept tax on empty roads (7)

The Automobile Association (The AA)^[7] is a British motoring association founded in 1905. Its counterparts in North America would be the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) and the American Automobile Association (AAA).

VAT^[5] (value added tax) is a tax on the amount by which the value of an article has been increased at each stage of its production or distribution. This system of taxation is used in Europe, where it is known as the VAT (or, more fully, the EU VAT) and in Canada, where it is called the GST (Goods and Services Tax) or, in provinces where the federal and provincial sales tax systems have been integrated, the HST (Harmonized Sales Tax). This system of taxation is not currently used in the United States.^[7] 

7d   Colour of vehicle crucial, according to reports (5)

Pommers comments, "Not usually keen on homophone clues but I think this one works quite well." Unless, of course, you happen to live in North America. Remember that the Brits pronounce "car" with a soft R making it sound like 'cah'. Thus "car key" would sound like 'cah key' which is a very good approximation to khaki.

8d   Coerce journalists to rebel, supporting United (10)

I certainly don't think that pressurise (or pressurize) would be used to mean coerce in North America, but it clearly is used that way in Britain. According to Oxford Dictionaries, pressurise can mean to attempt to persuade or coerce (someone) into doing something ⇒ (i) don’t let anyone pressurize you into snap decisions or (ii) people had been pressurized to vote. This latter example, especially, would likely elicit a smile — evoking an image of people being inflated with air before entering a polling station!

"United" is almost certainly a reference to the Manchester United Football Club^[7] (often referred to as simply United), an English professional football [soccer] club, based at Old Trafford [football stadium] in Old Trafford [district of Manchester], Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League (the top level in the English football league system).

14d   Struck dumb by the lack of deliveries (10)

In the second definition, a delivery is the act of giving a speech — so, "lack of deliveries" signifies no speeches being given.

20d   Strip of French polish mostly ruined (7)

De^[8] is a French preposition meaning of.

25d   Tourist in Cornwall team regularly encountered (5)

In the Cornish dialect, emmet^[10] means a tourist or holiday-maker. It is also an archaic or British dialect word for ant.

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