Monday, March 4, 2013 — DT 27049

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27049
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Friday, December 14, 2012
Setter Giovanni (Don Manley)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27049]
Big Dave's Review Written By Gazza
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

I got off to a roaring start and started to think that I might finish in record time. However, after completing the top half, I struggled through the bottom half and eventually had to call in the electronic reinforcements to help me complete the southwest quadrant.

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.

Across

1a   Timid about a B&B that's dirty? (6)

In the cryptic reading, not dirty^[10] in the sense of soiled but in the sense of contemptible.

4a   This writer's wanting agreement to make impression (6)

It is a common cryptic crossword convention [more common than usual today] for the creator of the puzzle to use terms such as compiler, setter, author, or writer to refer to himself or herself. To solve such a clue, one must usually substitute a first person pronoun (I or me) for whichever of these terms has been used  in the clue. Since Giovanni has expanded the clue here to "this writer's", we also need to include the proper person of the verb 'to be' in the solution.

8a   Outside old university see awful rabble making attack (8)

10a   Blemish of Greek character -- that's about tax primarily? (6)

Sigma^[5] is the eighteenth letter of the Greek alphabet (Σ, σ).

11a   Rasp in row (4)

12a   Troubled soul? Obtain forgiveness (10)

13a   What could be statement in Holy Writ (3,9)

This clue contains what Gazza calls a "reverse anagram" and I prefer to call an "inverse anagram" (my background in mathematics showing through). "What could be statement" is an anagram of 'testament" which might be clued in a cryptic crossword puzzle as "new testament".

16a   Traveller's joy? Senior citizen experiences it as hairy (3,4,5)

Traveller's joy^[5] is a tall scrambling clematis (Clematis vitalba) with small fragrant flowers and tufts of grey hairs around the seeds. Native to Eurasia and North Africa, it grows chiefly on calcareous soils. Also called old man's beard.

20a   A comic Frenchman in group is to abandon principles (10)

Jacques Tati^[7] (born Jacques Tatischeff) (1907 — 1982) was a French filmmaker who worked as a comic actor, writer, and director.

21a   List of chaps attending university (4)

Attend is used in the sense of occur with or as a result of [in other words, accompanied by] ⇒ people feared that the switch to a peacetime economy would be attended by a severe slump.

22a   This writer that is penning article, an unkind type (6)

See comment at 4a.

23a   French refusal to accept a European dictator (8)

Non^[10] is a French word meaning no.

Napoleon I^[5] (1769 – 1821) was emperor of France from 1804–14 and again in 1815; full name Napoleon Bonaparte; known as Napoleon. In 1799 Napoleon joined a conspiracy which overthrew the Directory, becoming the supreme ruler of France. He declared himself emperor in 1804, and established an empire stretching from Spain to [appropriately enough in the context of this clue] Poland. After defeats at Trafalgar (1805) and in Russia (1812), he abdicated and was exiled to the island of Elba (1814). He returned to power in 1815, but was defeated at Waterloo and exiled to the island of St Helena.

24a   Before start of ritual saint must be clothed in proper cloth (6)

25a   Impassioned founder of cosmetics firm, foremost in toiletry (6)

Florence Nightingale Graham (1884 – 1966), who went by the business name Elizabeth Arden^[7], was a Canadian-American businesswoman who founded what is now Elizabeth Arden, Inc., and built a cosmetics empire in the United States. At the peak of her career, she was one of the wealthiest women in the world.

Down

1d   Special policemen releasing several imprisoned characters for example (8)

I only realized how the wordplay works when I read Gazza's review. This is the inverse of a hidden word clue. Rather than select a sequence of letters from the middle of a phrase, one must instead delete a sequence of letters. Through this process, SPECIal policeMEN becomes SPECIMEN.

2d   Leader of academy donated a plant (5)

3d   Black donkey seen around British isle with a whole lot of plants and animals (7)

The Isle of Man (abbreviation IOM)^[5] is an island in the Irish Sea which is a British Crown dependency having home rule, with its own legislature (the Tynwald) and judicial system. The island was part of the Norse kingdom of the Hebrides in the Middle Ages, passing into Scottish hands in 1266 for a time, until the English gained control in the early 15th century. Its ancient language, Manx, is still occasionally used for ceremonial purposes.

5d   Wine's second retail outlet running short (7)

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

Moselle^[5] is a light medium-dry white wine produced in the valley of the River Moselle^[5] (a river of western Europe, which rises in the Vosges mountains of NE France and flows 550 km (346 miles) north-east through Luxembourg and Germany to meet the Rhine at Koblenz).

6d   Great thinker, exceptional sort with tale to engage one (9)

Aristotle^[5] (384 – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and scientist. A pupil of Plato and tutor to Alexander the Great, he founded a school (the Lyceum) outside Athens. He is one of the most influential thinkers in the history of Western thought and his work was central to Islamic and Christian medieval philosophy. His surviving works cover a vast range of subjects, including logic, ethics, metaphysics, politics, natural science, and physics.

7d   Sort of girl that's grave with zero yen (6)

In the cryptic reading, yen^[5] (abbreviation ) is the basic monetary unit of Japan.

9d   Star out in the distance followed by Scot who has dreadlocks? (11)

There was definitely a problem with the clue as published in Britain:

• 9d   A celebrity turning up in the distance — Scot who has dreadlocks? (11)

The clue was replaced in the online version of the puzzle in the UK by the version which appears in the National Post. Actually, I see no reason to have made such major changes — the clue could have been salvaged by merely changing "celebrity" to "Russian ruler" (although that would make for a rather bizarre surface reading).

14d   Numbers in the old days you would get on beach (9)

15d   Institute's period of time for accommodating call (5,3)

Collins English Dictionary and The American Heritage Dictionary define bout^[3,4] in a similar fashion. The former has it as a period of time spent doing something, such as drinking, while the latter says it is a period of time spent in a particular way; a spell ⇒ His tremendous bouts of drinking had wrecked his health (Thomas Wolfe).

17d   Terrific marksman that sees nothing? (7)

For reader's of Gazza's review, Dick Deadeye, or Duty Done^[7] is a 1975 British animated film musical, based on the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. The comically convoluted plot is a pastiche of many in the Gilbert and Sullivan canon, particularly Trial by Jury, The Sorcerer, H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, Patience, Iolanthe and The Mikado, in which the principal character, Able Seaman Dick Deadeye, is sent by Queen Victoria on a quest to recover the "Ultimate Secret" from the Sorcerer, who has stolen it. The music is borrowed from many Savoy operas, with the orchestrations being updated in a contemporary (for 1975) popular style.

Deadeye Dick^[7] is a novel by Kurt Vonnegut originally published in 1982.

18d   No. 5 for Leeds, one who cries as a player on the field? (7)

In this instance, for a change, the numeral in the clue is not a cross reference indicator.

In soccer, a sweeper^[5] is a player stationed behind the other defenders, free to defend at any point across the field and sometimes initiating and supporting attacks.

19d   Unhappy about page and about facing pages (6)

21d   Yours truly's penning brief line as children's author (5)

A. A. Milne^[7] (1882 – 1956) was an English writer for children; full name Alan Alexander Milne. He created the character of the toy bear Winnie-the-Pooh in stories written for his son Christopher Robin (1920 – 1996), published in Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) and The House at Pooh Corner (1928). [Note the hyphens in "Winnie-the-Pooh" which were mislaid by Walt Disney.]

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