Monday, April 1, 2013 — DT 27080

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27080
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Monday, January 21, 2013
Setter Rufus (Roger Squires)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27080]
Big Dave's Review Written By Big Dave
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
Notes This puzzle appears on the Monday Diversions page in the Saturday, March 30, 2013 edition of the National Post.

Introduction

Today is one of those rare occasions when the "Monday" puzzle actually shows up in the National Post on Monday — well, it almost did. The National Post did not publish today (it being Easter Monday) but it did include a Monday Diversions page in the Saturday edition.

Today, Big Dave takes over the reviewer's chair from Libellule. I would like to think that his assessment of the difficulty of the puzzle may have been one star short of what Libellule would have given it. That would give me some small bit of consolation after coming up short. In fact, I don't think I managed even a single solution from the across clues on my first read through. Fortunately, the down clues were far more accessible. I did become mired in the northwest quadrant — largely due to putting in a the North American name for the structure at 3d rather than the British name.

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   The weariness of military duty (7)

Fatigue^[4] denotes any of the mainly domestic duties performed by military personnel, especially as a punishment.

5a   Country poor actor bleats about (7)

9a   Bath's sex appeal girl (5)

SA^[5] is an abbreviation for sex appeal (deemed by Oxford to be an informal, dated usage). Una is a rather rare female given name [although I suspect that it may be more common in the UK than in North America — and a woman by that name is a regular at Big Dave's blog].

10a   Priceless old weapon employed by no one in particular (9)

11a   Actively working? (2,8)

The clue may involve a play on two meanings of the word 'business' — the obvious one and another that is more commonly spelled busyness. The Chambers Dictionary defines business^[1] (also written busyness) as the state of being busy. This meaning is also found in The American Heritage Dictionary which characterises the former spelling (business^[1]), used in this particular sense, as being obsolete.

12a   Trip to see Eiffel's structure in Paris? (4)

In Paris, "Eiffel's structure" would be called un tour, tour^[8] being the French word for tower.

14a   Idle? Definitely not (7,5)

I would say that this could be called a double definition. Big Dave hasn't explicitly marked it as such in his review, but his comment certainly alludes to it being one.

18a   Conveyance? One goes in one's car (12)

21a   Pine used in making tea chest (4)

22a   Cold food consumed like a baby (10)

The setter leaves it to the solver to insert the necessary punctuation to clarify the meaning of the wordplay. One must read it as "cold; food consumed [by it]".

25a   Takes a meal among sailors, though it causes delay (9)

26a   More than one ghost writer (5)

Ghosts^[7] is a play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828 – 1906) that was written in 1881 and first staged in 1882. The clue cryptically tells us that Ibsen wrote Ghosts ("more than one ghost").

27a   On board get rotten seats (7)

In Crosswordland, could a ship be anything other than a steamship (abbreviation SS^[5])?

28a   One side of Glasgow (7)

In Britain, side^[7] is another term for a sports team. There are two football [soccer] sides based in Glasgow, Scotland — although, after events of the past year, there very nearly was only one.

The Rangers Football Club^[7] is a football club based in Glasgow, Scotland that plays in the Third Division of the Scottish Football League. Founded in 1872, Rangers were one of the ten founder members of the Scottish Football League, and remained in Scotland's top division [which, since 1998, has been the Scottish Premier League] until the end of the 2011–12 season. In 2012, The Rangers Football Club plc became insolvent and the team was liquidated. Under "new" ownership, the Rangers relaunched in the Scottish Football League's Third Division at the start of season 2012–13.

The Celtic Football Club^[7] is a Scottish football club based in Glasgow, which plays in the Scottish Premier League. The club was established in 1887, and played its first game in 1888. Celtic have a long-standing rivalry with Rangers; the two Glasgow clubs are collectively known as the Old Firm.

In the Scottish football hierarchy, the Premier League [formed in 1998, when it broke away from the Scottish Football League] is the top level, below which is the Scottish Football League (which has three tiers). Teams that finish low in their tier can be relegated to the next lower tier for the following season and teams that finish near the top of their tier can be promoted to the next higher tier [with the precise mechanism through which relegation and promotion is determined being extremely complicated]. Thus it is very conceivable that the Rangers (playing this year in the bottom division of the Scottish Football League) could eventually make their way back up to the Premier League — although it would presumably take a minimum of three years for that to be accomplished.

Down

1d   Relic of ship put in protective wrapping (6)

We have a veritable fleet of steamships today.

2d   They're up for approval (6)

Thumbs down for my performance here! This is one I should have had.

3d   Where uniform ranks may be forced to grow better? (10)

In Britain, glasshouse^[5] is another name for a greenhouse. Most of my problems in the northwest corner arose from putting the wrong word in here. While doing the puzzle, I presumed that "uniform ranks" was a reference to rows of plants. However, I now discover that glasshouse is also British military slang for a prison  ⇒ one bloke tried it and finished up in the glasshouse.

4d   Small and mischievous, the Spanish end in France (5)

In the Spanish language, the masculine singular form of the definite article is el^[8]. In the French language, the word for end is fin^[8].

5d   Proverbially they are counted as happy events (9)

6d   Horribly heartless, yet pure in heart (4)

7d   Unusual gloom in a remote part of Asia (8)

8d   See great changes in economy travel (8)

13d   Domination is out of order, get a telling off (10)

15d   Uplifts by adjusting the hinges (9)

16d   Lack of religion made this city go into liquidation (8)

Atlantis^[7] is a legendary island first mentioned by Plato's about 360 BC. According to Plato, Atlantis was a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa around 9600 BC. After a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank into the ocean "in a single day and night of misfortune".

Apart from Atlantis being an island, rather than a city, I wondered about the reference to "lack of religion". A quick scan failed to reveal anything substantive — but I make no claims to being a classical scholar. I did learn that, in Plato's writings, ancient Athens seems to represent the "perfect society" described in his early work the Republic with Atlantis, its opponent, representing the very antithesis of these "perfect" traits.

17d   Grade the produce harvested (8)

19d   In class it's hard to be virtuous (6)

20d   He's involved with any mistreated animals (6)

The wordplay being an anagram (mistreated) of {HES + (involved with) ANY}.

23d   Beam that's light and very strong (5)

24d   Quietly suffering medical treatment (4)

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

The number of pianos in Crosswordland surely must nearly match the number of steamships.

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