Thursday, November 1, 2012 - DT 26947

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26947
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Friday, August 17, 2012
Setter Giovanni (Don Manley)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26947]
Big Dave's Review Written By Gazza
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 appreciated that Giovanni did not make today's puzzle overly difficult as I was recovering from a late night blogging today's puzzle in The Daily Telegraph. I get the puzzle at midnight local time in London (which is normally 7:00 p.m. here, a five hour time difference). However, since Britain has already reverted to Standard Time and we have not yet done so, the time difference is only four hours and I did not receive the puzzle until 8:00 p.m. — meaning a later night than usual for me.

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  Artist manages to capture the male bird (4)

Crosswordland's favourite artist pays a visit again today — after having dropped by as recently as yesterday. A Royal Academician (abbreviation RA^[5]) is a member of the Royal Academy of Arts^[5], an institution established in London in 1768, whose purpose is to cultivate painting, sculpture, and architecture in Britain.

9a   Cleaners put off attending public toilet (10)

The Gents^[5] is a [chiefly, but (I would hazard to say) not exclusively] British way to refer to a men’s public toilet.

10a   A small river? Certainly not! (4)

The Arno^[5] is a river which rises in the Apennines of northern Italy and flows westwards 240 km (150 miles) through Florence and Pisa to the Ligurian Sea.

12a   Story to introduce the German songs (6)

Der^[7] is a form of the German definite article which may be found in any of several declensions. When used in the nominative case, it is the masculine singlular form. In the dative case, it is the feminine singular form. In the genitive case, it may be either the feminine singular form or, in the plural, either masculine, feminine or neuter.

 A lied^[5] (plural lieder) is a type of German song, especially of the Romantic period, typically for solo voice with piano accompaniment.

13a   Amateur in front of elders, cross and impertinent (8)

I had the same reaction as Gazza to Giovanni's choice of the word "impertinent" to clue PERT.

15a   Like worker in dining room who lets table out (5,3,4)

To sit below the salt^[5] is to be of lower social standing or worth ⇒ paperback publishers used to be considered people who sat below the salt. In his review at Big Dave's Crossword Blog, Gazza explains the origin of the phrase.

18a   Fashionable goddess with sophistication not hard to find in American city (12)

In Roman mythology, Diana is an early Italian goddess associated with hunting, virginity, and, in later literature, with the moon. The equivalent goddess in Greek mythology is Artemis. 

H^[5] is the abbreviation for hard, as used in describing grades of pencil lead ⇒ a 2H pencil.

25a   Bringing to light university event that almost went wrong? (10)

It took a long time for the light to dawn — and I needed a gentle nudge from my electronic friends. The wordplay is U (university) + NEAR THING (event that almost went wrong; or, in other words, a narrow escape).

26a   Writer in bad mood about nothing (4)

The word strop^[5] (used by Gazza in his review) is British slang for a bad mood or a temper^[5] (in the sense of an angry state of mind) ⇒ Nathalie gets in a strop and makes to leave.

1d   Let loose having drunk rum, walk unsteadily (6)

Rum^[5] is dated British slang meaning odd or peculiar.

8d   A humourless condition evident in ex-believer (8)

Po-faced^[5] is a British expression meaning humourless and disapproving • don’t be so po-faced about everything. The Chambers Dictionary would have us believe that po^[1] is a shortening of po-faced. However, it appears to stand alone among dictionaries in this position.

11d   Erstwhile beautiful female gets mad trying out new styles (12)

In Persian mythology, a peri^[5] is a mythical superhuman being, originally represented as evil but subsequently as a good or graceful genie or fairy. According to WordNet (a large lexical database of English developed at Princeton University), in Persian folklore, a peri is a supernatural being descended from fallen angels and excluded from paradise until penance is done. Despirte a fairly exhaustive search I was unable to find any evidence whatsoever that the peris of Persian mythology or folklore are necessarily female.

However, several dictionaries do provide a secondary definition for peri. WordNet defines peri as a beautiful and graceful girl; Infoplease (based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary) defines peri^[9] as any lovely, graceful person and Collins English Dictionary broadens this secondary definition of peri^[10] to any beautiful fairy-like creature.

Therefore, the only source which would seem to substantiate this aspect of the clue is WordNet. I was unable to find support in either the printed or online versions of Chambers.

23d   Crazy cricketers (4)

In cricket, the term bat^[5] can have any of several meanings, namely (1) a cricket bat, (2) a turn at playing with a bat [an instance of batting], or (3) a person batting (or, in other words, a batsman) ⇒ the team’s opening bat. In this usage example, the "opening bat" would be the first batsman for a team in the match (a term somewhat akin to a leadoff batter in baseball).

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