Wednesday, November 28, 2012 - DT 26970

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26970
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, September 13, 2012
Setter RayT (Ray Terrell)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26970]
Big Dave's Review Written By Falcon
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

Encountering a puzzle again three months after I first solved it is usually like running into an old acquaintance one hasn't seen in many years. At first, you don't recognize the person, then gradually a feeling of déjà vu begins to creep over you until you eventually convince yourself that it is someone that you have met somewhere, sometime in the distant past. You'd speak to them it you could only remember their name.

Such was the case today. Even though I was expecting this puzzle to be one that I had reviewed for Big Dave (Pommers and Big Dave each mentioned in recent postings that my turn in the reviewers chair was coming up), I initially did not recognize the clues. In fact, I even wondered for a moment if the National Post might have skipped some puzzles. However, slowly the clues did begin to look a bit familiar. Nevertheless, the puzzle did pose a healthy challenge — even on the second time around. At least, I was able to complete it without calling my electronic assistants into action. Having been idle now for several days, I hope they are not too out of shape the next time I need their assistance.

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   Taught you French, pulled apart by Germany (7)

The second person singular form of the subjective case of the French pronoun is tu^[8]. The International Vehicle Registration code for Germany is D^[5] [from German Deutschland].

5a   Grant Bono's partner has hidden talent (7)

Sonny & Cher^[7] were an American pop music duo, actors, singers and entertainers made up of husband-and-wife team Sonny and Cher Bono in the 1960s and 1970s.

25a   Front end of snub nose revolver (7)

In Britain, hooter^[3,4] is a slang term for a nose (when it is not a car horn); whereas, in North America, hooters is a slang term for a woman's breasts (when it does not refer to number of owls).

28a   Nearing time, duck fight with gutless drunks (7)

In cricket, a duck^[5] is a batsman’s score of nought [zero] ⇒ he was out for a duck. In cryptic crossword puzzles, duck is used to indicate the letter "O" based on the resemblance of the numeral "0" to this letter.

1d   Very loud, one in truck overturned creating congestion (7)

Fortissimo (abbreviation ff)^[5] is a direction used in music to mean either (as an adjective) very loud  or (as an adverb) very loudly.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines truck^[3] as another name for a hand truck^[3], a two-wheeled cart for moving heavy objects by hand, consisting of a vertical framework with handles at the top and a metal blade at the bottom that is inserted beneath a load, the entire assembly being tilted backward until balanced for easy pushing or pulling. Of course, truck and cart are also synonymous as verbs meaning to carry a load ("Before laying the new carpet, I carted everything out of the living room — and then trucked it all back afterwards").

2d   Footballer hugging provided shock (7)

John Terry^[7] is an English professional footballer [soccer player]. Terry plays in a centre back position and is the captain of Chelsea in the Premier League [the top level league in English football]. He was also captain of the England national football team, holding the post from August 2006 to February 2010, and again from March 2011 to February 2012.

Does the clue somehow allude to the following incident?

In January 2010, a super-injunction was imposed by a High Court judge preventing the media from reporting allegations that Terry had had a four-month affair in late 2009 with Vanessa Perroncel, the former girlfriend of Wayne Bridge, his former Chelsea and England teammate. The injunction was lifted a week later, and the British media – especially the tabloid press – covered the rumours in great detail in the days following. The News of the World and the Mail on Sunday subsequently printed apologies to Perroncel for breaching her privacy and stated that the story was "untrue in any case". Perroncel maintains that the alleged affair never took place. The allegations led to then-England manager Fabio Capello removing Terry from the captaincy on 5 February 2010. Terry was reinstated as captain the following year.

3d    Whistling, craving topless ... (5)

4d   ... ride, and gasp uncontrollably taking a knock (9)

The pair of ellipses creating a link between 3d and 4d serve no real purpose from a cryptic perspective as each clue can stand on its own. In the surface reading, however, they suggest that the two clues be read together to form a single sentence. While the surface reading of the latter clue is somewhat meaningful, that of the former clue (taken on its own) is quite meaningless.

18d   Endlessly stimulate following a second of love (7)

In the UK, mo^[5] is an informal term for a short period of time (hang on a mo!) [abbreviation of moment].

20d   More careless loose talk? (7)

Blither is a variant of blather. The article to which the link takes us concludes that "[t]he difference [between these two variants] is subtle—and maybe we’re just grasping for one—but it seems blithering usually appears in more negative uses, while blathering is more often used self-deprecatingly.".

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