Thursday, December 13, 2012 - DT 26983

Puzzle at a Glance

Daily Telegraph Puzzle Number DT 26983
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Friday, September 28, 2012
Setter Giovanni (Don Manley)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 26983]
Big Dave's Review Written By Scchua
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

Scchua reports that he found the right hand side of this puzzle more difficult than the left hand side. For myself, it was the opposite, with the lower left hand side being the last to be completed.

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.

9a   Smell coming from party in old, old city (5)

Ur^[5] was an ancient Sumerian city located on the Euphrates, in southern Iraq. It was one of the oldest cities of Mesopotamia, dating from the 4th millennium BC, and reached its zenith in the late 3rd millennium BC.

10a   Capital city to suffer loss of life when captured by British officer (9)

Riga^[5] is a port on the Baltic Sea and the capital of Latvia.

11a   Worker protected in secure American city (5,2)

We are getting a bit of a geography lesson today. Santa Fe^[5] is the state capital of New Mexico.

13a   Greek detectives about to apprehend men (5)

In Britain, the the detective division of a police force is known as the Criminal Investigation Department (or CID)^[10]. In the British armed forces, other ranks (abbreviation OR)^[5] refers to all those who are not commissioned officers. Doric^[5] is the ancient Greek dialect of the Dorians (as well as being a style of Greek architecture).

16a   Provides variety — it’s what one who knows the ropes does (5,3,7)

Ring the changes^[5] means to vary the ways of expressing or doing something. The expression makes allusion to bell-ringing and the different orders in which a peal of bells may be rung. The Cambridge Idioms Dictionary characterises this expression as British & Australian.^[Ref]

28a   Discover knight sitting by river beyond meadow (5)

In algebraic chess notation^[7], the knight is represented by the letter N (since K is used for king).

2d   One who signs up as member of carpenter’s team ? (6)

Joiner^[5] is a chiefly British term for a person who constructs the wooden components of a building, such as stairs, doors, and door and window frames ⇒ bricklayers and joiners are needed to convert derelict properties.

4d   What makes bishop be taken in by idiot woman trying to be religious ? (6)

I was not able to explain the presence of the word "trying" to my personal satisfaction. It seems that many of the Brits had similar issues with this word. Although there is much discussion on Big Dave's blog on this point and several theories are put forward, there seems to be no definitive resolution.

7d   Little woman in aquatic sport falling apart (8)

For a change, this woman is not named Di. The woman, in fact, is Ida. However, if one were to reverse the truncated portion of her name demanded by the clue, guess who appears?

8d  Horrible woman clothed in soft colour advanced (10)

Piano^[3,5] (abbreviation p^[5]), is a musical direction meaning either soft or quiet (as an adjective) or softly or quietly (as an adverb).

15d  Abseiler to wobble holding a line? It’s within the bounds of possibility (10)

In Britain, to abseil^[5] is to descend a rock face or other near-vertical surface by using a doubled rope coiled round the body and fixed at a higher point. Another term for this (and the one which is commonly used in North America) is rappel^[5].

17d  Like teacher’s pet in mishap that’s almost disastrous (4,4)

This is a double definition, with the first one being cryptic. Note that Scchua comments on the first definition in his review but indicates the second merely by underlining it in the clue. I have to admit that I was a bit unsure that I had the wordplay correct until my analysis was confirmed by Scchua. Pupils might call their teacher 'Miss', so a "teacher's pet" (a dog or cat, for instance, rather than a favourite student) might well be found sit at the front of the class 'near Miss'. A near miss is also a close call.

Note: After reading a comment from Gazza on Big Dave's blog, I've revised my original comment .

20d   Quit indoor sport shortly after grabbing record (6)

As well as being a professional competitive sport, darts^[7] is a traditional pub game, commonly played in the United Kingdom, across the Commonwealth, the Netherlands, Belgium, Republic of Ireland, the Scandinavian countries, the United States, Canada, and elsewhere.

24d  The French world, first and last, is vulgar (4)

Le^[8] is the masculine singular form of the French definite article.

26d   Money must be managed with diligence initially (4)

The rand^[5] is the basic monetary unit of South Africa, equal to 100 cents.

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