Thursday, February 28, 2013 — DT 27047

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27047
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Setter Jay (Jeremy Mutch)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27047]
Big Dave's Review Written By Big Dave
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

Big Dave awarded this puzzle four stars for enjoyment value. Could all the references to food have influenced his judgment? I must say that I rather enjoyed the puzzle myself — not the least because I was able to finish without any aid from my electronic helpers.

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

4a   Cook's part played by fool in church (9)

In Britain, unlike North America, the word casserole^[4] is used as a verb as well as noun. As a verb, it means to cook or be cooked in a casserole.

9a   Question put to cleaner: 'What would chef do?' (9)

Char^[5] is  short for charwoman^[5], a dated British term for a woman employed as a cleaner in a house or office.

10a   Carpenter's key joints (5)

"Chips" is a traditional nickname for a carpenter, especially aboard sailing vessels.

11a   Sweet abandon, embracing sin (not at home) (7)

In Britain, sweet^[5] is another name for pudding or dessert.

12a   Area of ship producing the best team? (7)

If you happen to be puzzled by Big Dave's illustration for this clue, topside^[5] is the British name for the outer side of a round of beef ⇒ roast topside.

15a   Dish for preparing oakum to protect area on ship (8)

Moussaka^[5] is a Greek dish made of minced lamb, aubergines [the British name for eggplants], and tomatoes, with cheese sauce on top.

You'll rarely regret assuming that a ship in Crosswordland is a steamship (abbreviation SS^[5]).

18a   Daughters heartlessly surrounding a fashionable couple to get treats (8)

A dainty^[4] is a choice piece of food, especially a small cake or sweet; a delicacy. As we saw at 11a, sweet can mean dessert, but it can also mean candy^[5]. In the definition for dainty, I would think that it probably means the former — although the latter meaning would work equally well in the clue.

20a   Scoundrel's terrible horse, say, full of energy (3,3)

Children in the UK - and bettors at British racetracks - commonly refer to a horse as a gee-gee^[5]. The term was originally a child's word, a reduplication of gee^[5], a command to a horse to go faster.

23a   Tea with fresh pita bread (7)

In Britain, tea may informally be called char (or cha or chai)^[5].

In Indian cookery, a chapati^[5] is a thin pancake of unleavened wholemeal bread cooked on a griddle.

According to Oxford Dictionaries Online, pita is a North American spelling. Pitta^[5] (or pitta bread) is flat, hollow, slightly leavened bread which can be split open to hold a filling ⇒ (i) low-calorie starters include tzatziki with a little pitta; (ii) flat pitta breads make perfect sandwiches. Will this spelling precipitate howls of outrage on Big Dave's blog?

26a   Dwell on origin of oak tree (5)

I parsed this as O (origin of oak) + PINE (tree), (mistakenly) thinking that OPINE might possibly mean to state repeatedly ("dwell on").

29a   Ray's small girl in musical (5)

Kiss Me, Kate^[7] is a 1948 Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter.

Down

1d   Defender, old-fashioned but effective in retrospect (4-5)

According to Oxford Dictionaries Online, a back^[5] is a player in a team game who plays in a defensive position behind the forwards • their backs showed some impressive running and passing. While this definition may be accurate for sports such as association football (soccer) and field hockey, it hardly applies to North American football where there are both offensive and defensive backs (who alternately take the field depending on which team has possession of the ball). In hockey (ice hockey for the Brits), the equivalent position is called a defenceman (in both men's and women's hockey).

2d   Credit sailors for things caught at sea (5)

In the Royal Navy, able seaman (abbreviation AB)^[5], is a rank of sailor above ordinary seaman and below leading seaman.

4d   Material from tip in Czech Republic (6)

The International Vehicle Registration (IVR) code for the Czech Republic is CZ^[10].

6d   Gets away from rest inside, with carbon copies (7)

The symbol for the chemical element carbon is C^[5].

8d   Result in French -- institute legal proceedings (5)

En^[8] is a French preposition meaning in.

16d   Total attendance after George gets in terrible rage (9)

I'm rather surprised to see "George" used to clue G. To the best of my understanding, proper names can only be used to clue letters when there is some other justification for their use — such as henry (the SI unit of inductance) and Oscar and Romeo (used to represent their respective starting letters in radio communication). King George is often seen clueing GR (Georgius Rex), but I know of no explanation for George alone.

19d   Thief's contribution to hot drink (3,4)

Tea leaf^[5] is British rhyming slang for a thief.

21d   Comes down and lies around after six-pack (7)

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 that is commonly used in North America) is rappel^[5].

23d   My editor talked lovingly! (5)

Coo^[5] is an informal British exclamation used to express surprise  ⇒ ‘Coo, ain’t it high!’ Mary squeaked.

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