Monday, February 18, 2013 — DT 27036

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27036
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, November 29, 2012
Setter RayT (Ray Terrell)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27036]
Big Dave's Review Written By pommers
BD 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

This was originally posted as being the Friday puzzle, as I hadn't twigged to the large headline "MONDAY'S DIVERSIONS" plastered across the top of the page. Doh!

Today I felt like a runner must feel who collapses inches short of the finish line. I was able to complete the puzzle, all for one clue, over the course of two sessions. However, after pondering over that last remaining clue for far too long, I threw in the towel and consulted my electronic help.

Today's puzzle is unmistakably the work of Ray Terrell (RayT). There is his signature reference to his favourite band (Queen) in 23a, a mention of his alter ego (Beam, the pseudonym under which he sets Toughie puzzles in The Daily Telegraph) in 22a, not to mention a liberal serving of innuendo.

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.

5a   Lady of the French game (7)

When used before a masculine, singular noun starting with a consonant [have I overlooked any other necessary condition?], the French word meaning "of the" is du^[8].

10a   Woolf in essence shows skill (7)

Virginia Woolf^[7] (1882 – 1941) was an English novelist, essayist, and critic; born Adeline Virginia Stephen. A member of the Bloomsbury Group, she gained recognition with Jacob’s Room (1922). Subsequent novels, such as Mrs Dalloway (1925) and To the Lighthouse (1927), characterized by their poetic impressionism, established her as an exponent of modernism.

The name is probably best known from Edward Albee's play, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?^[7], that opened on Broadway in 1962. A 1966 feature film based on the play starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

11a   Ecdysiast ends in act showing little bust (9)

Unlike pommers, I knew that an ecdysiast^[7] is a striptease performer without looking up the definition. [How telling is that?]

13a   Clown, often melancholy, improvising caricatures initially? (5)

I don't entirely share pommers' concern about this clue, "Clown appears to be doing double duty" by which he means that "clown" is part of the wordplay and also appears to be the definition. In fact, the entire clue serves as the definition in what is clearly intended to be an & lit. (all-in-one) clue.

23a   Enclosure crammed keeping Queen band together (2-7)

Here, the incorrect supposition that the "enclosure" was surely a CAGE was my undoing. However, when I finally relented and consulted my electronic assistants, they informed me that they knew of only two possible words which match the checking letters. At that point, selecting the correct one was a cinch.

26   New Avenger giving chase (7)

The New Avengers^[7] is a British secret agent fantasy adventure television series produced during 1976 and 1977. It is a sequel to the 1960s series, The Avengers^[7].

A joint UK-France-Canada production, the sequel picks up the adventures of John Steed (again played by Patrick Macnee) as he and his team of "Avengers" fight evil plots and world domination. Whereas in the original series Steed had almost always been partnered with a woman, in the new series he had two partners: Mike Gambit (played by Gareth Hunt), a top agent, crack marksman and trained martial artist, and Purdey (played by Joanna Lumley), a former trainee with The Royal Ballet (to which she ascribed the high-kicking skills she frequently used in the series) who was an amalgam of many of the best talents from Steed's female partners in The Avengers.

As the clue states that only one agent participates in the chase, pommers has selected one of the two newcomers for the purposes of illustration. He certainly seems to have exhibited no hesitation in deciding which one to choose!

Chase^[7] is a verb meaning to engrave (metal, or a design on metal), although it is most often seen in the form of a past participle used as an adjective ⇒ a miniature container with a delicately chased floral design.

27a   Policeman's discharge around large parade (7)

A detective inspector (DI)^[5] is a senior police officer in the UK. Within the British police, inspector^[7] is the second supervisory rank. It is senior to that of sergeant, but junior to that of chief inspector. Plain-clothes detective inspectors are equal in rank to their uniformed counterparts, the prefix 'detective' identifying them as having been trained in criminal investigation and being part of or attached to their force's Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

28a   Hill's divided by rushing stream (7)

As you may gather from pommers' review and comments on Big Dave's blog, the UK was experiencing some very severe flooding at the time that this puzzle appeared in The Daily Telegraph.

3d   Nice parting speech? (5)

Adieu^[8] is a French word meaning goodbye. Nice^[5] is a resort city on the French Riviera, near the border with Italy; population 348,721 (2007).

5d   Writer gave up on Old English (5)

Daniel Defoe^[5] (1660 – 1731) was an English novelist and journalist. His best-known novel, Robinson Crusoe (1719), is loosely based on the true story of the shipwrecked sailor Alexander Selkirk; it has a claim to being the first English novel. Other notable works: Moll Flanders (novel, 1722) and A Journal of the Plague Year (historical fiction, 1722).

6d   Tin or can possibly holding last of preserve? (9)

Once again, pommers fails to recognize an all-in-one clue. As I recall, he has admitted (on numerous occasions) that this is a style of clue that gives him difficulty.

7d   Oriental bird after endless happiness (7)

Ease^[10] is a synonym for happiness in the sense of peace of mind.

21d   Fire was one  thing to heat water (7)

The setter uses the past tense for a reason.In ancient and medieval cosmology, the elements^[10] were the four substances thought to constitute the universe (earth, air, water, and fire).

24d   Uplifting piano music by the French composer (5)

Sir Edward Elgar^[5] (1857 – 1934) was an English composer known particularly for the Enigma Variations (1899), the oratorio The Dream of Gerontius (1900), and for patriotic pieces such as the five Pomp and Circumstance marches (1901–30). Elgar is also the The pseudonym of John Henderson for Toughie crosswords in The Daily Telegraph.

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

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