Friday, April 26, 2013 — DT 27101

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27101
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, February 14, 2013
Setter Petitjean (John Pidgeon)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27101]
Big Dave's Review Written By pommers
BD Rating
Difficulty - ★★	Enjoyment - ★★★★
Falcon's Experience ┌────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┐ ███████████████████████████████████ └────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┘ 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

It would certainly be germane to note that today's puzzle appeared in The Daily Telegraph on February 14, 2013 (Valentine's Day).

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   You may get the point of this today (6,5)

7a   Some gigolo! Nerdy one with no friends (5)

8a   Tricky task: sell a pitch (5,4)

10a   Head of the Arts replaced by very predatory creature (7)

11a   Minute outwardly powerless muscles (7)

12a   Popular place for mosaic perhaps (5)

Like pommers, I also toyed with SET for "place".

13a   Dodgy poseur embracing her is fantasy figure (9)

16a   City and church make public transport available for invalids (4,5)

A bath chair^[5] is a dated term referring to a kind of wheelchair for invalids, typically with a hood. It is
named after the city of Bath^[5], which attracted many invalids because of the supposed curative powers of its hot springs.

18a   Drinks and sandwiches (5)

In Britain, round^[5] means (1) a slice of bread ⇒ two rounds of toast; or (2) the quantity of sandwiches made from two slices of bread.

19a   I'm left in show which is endless graft (7)

To explain pommers' comment, in Britain graft^[5] may mean (as a noun) hard work ⇒ success came after years of hard graft and (as a verb) to work hard ⇒ I need people prepared to go out and graft.

22a   Stuff with taleggio -- originally a fine cheese (7)

My first reaction was that this clue must surely take the award for the vaguest definition ever perpetrated on solvers. However, The Chambers Dictionary defines stuff^[1] as cloth, especially woolen. Whether this is the same thing as taffeta, you be the judge.

Taleggio^[5] is a type of soft Italian cheese made from cow’s milk — named after the Taleggio valley in Lombardy.

23a   Break up most of dismal coal while it glows (9)

Again I followed in pommers' footsteps, initially thinking that "most of" would signify all but the last letter.

24a   Crush in a party (5)

25a   Unlikely mature crone will provide you with ideal relationship (4,7)

Down

1d   Hundred and fifty select few endlessly bathed in a warm glow (9)

2d   Exercise right before panel to give false evidence (7)

The exercise in question would be a Physical Education (PE)^[5] class.

3d   What are the odds of dryish fizzy drink leading to a tummy ache? (9)

Dyspepsia^[4] is indigestion or upset stomach.

4d   Start off voting dole out (5)

5d   Following run on icy surface winter sports enthusiast is more reckless (7)

On cricket scorecards, the abbreviation R^[5] indicates run(s).

6d   Wind you and I have commonly (5)

The wordplay is WE (you and I) + AVE (a common way to pronounce "have" — especially in the East End of London (home of the Cockneys).

7d   Nothing's on screen that Shakespeare wrote (4,2,5)

In tennis, squash, and some other sports, love^[5] is a score of zero or nil ⇒ love fifteen. The resemblance of a zero written as a numeral (0) to the letter O leads to the cryptic crossword convention of the word "love" being used to clue this letter.

The phrase in the solution comes from William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice, a snippet of which pommers quotes in his review.

9d   Recipe for disaster in affectionate gesture by horseman? (4,2,5)

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse^[5] are four allegorical mounted figures, commonly identified as Pestilence (or Conquest), War, Famine, and Death, whose arrival heralds the end of the world, as described in the biblical book of Revelation. The term is used to refer to people or phenomena seen as agents of imminent catastrophe ⇒ in 2003, the airline industry survived the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

14d   Bonfire temperature's hot beside unusual chrysanth (9)

Chrysanth^[5] is an informal British term for a cultivated chrysanthemum. Pyrethrum is an aromatic plant (genus Tanacetum — but formerly Chrysanthemum or Pyrethrum)) of the daisy family, typically having feathery foliage and brightly coloured flowers. There are several species, in particular T. coccineum, grown as an ornamental, and T. cinerariifolium, grown as a source of the insecticide pyrethrum.

15d   Count out and pay with small change and no tip (9)

17d   Talk English at the French country house in the Dordogne? (7)

In French, the word combination à (at) and le (the) is contracted to au^[5].

Dordogne^[7] is a department in southwestern France. The department is located in the region of Aquitaine between the Loire Valley and the Pyrenees. and is named after the great Dordogne river that runs through it.

18d   Give up  burden (7)

Burden^[5] is an archaic term meaning the refrain or chorus of a song.

20d   Claim some characters in Donizetti's opera are contrary (5)

Gaetano Donizetti^[5] (1797 – 1848) was an Italian composer. His operas include tragedies such as Lucia di Lammermoor (1835) and comedies such as Don Pasquale (1843).

21d   Underground root's original potato maybe (5)

The Tube^[5] (British trademark) is (1) the underground railway system in London, England ⇒ a cross-London trek on the Tube or (2) a train running on the Tube ⇒ I caught the tube home. In Britain, underground^[5] (often the Underground) means an underground railway, especially the one in London ⇒ travel chaos on the Underground.

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)
^[11] - TheFreeDictionary.com (Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary)

Signing off for today — Falcon