Wednesday, December 25, 2013 — DT 27278

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27278
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Monday, September 9, 2013
Setter Rufus (Roger Squires)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27278]
Big Dave's Crossword Blog Review Written By Libellule
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 Christmas Diversions page in the Tuesday, December 24, 2013 edition of the National Post.

Introduction

Merry Christmas to everyone. I hope you enjoyed this offering from Rufus as much as I did.

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. The underlined portion of the clue is the definition.

Across

1a   Loans saved, can make a move (8)

6a   Where the Ark went fast (6)

A play on two meanings of the word fast^[5] — moving at high speed or firmly fixed or attached ⇒ he made a rope fast to each corner.

Mount Ararat^[5] comprises a pair of volcanic peaks in eastern Turkey, near the borders with Armenia and Iran. The higher peak, which rises to 5,165 m (16,946 ft), is the traditional site of the resting place of Noah’s ark after the Flood (Gen. 8:4).

9a   Name for girls and boys, evenly distributed (6)

This is one of those names, like Beverly, which was once a common boy's name but has become almost exclusively a girl's name.

As Libellule states, the solution is "only just an anagram", meaning that one merely needs to displace a single letter.

10a   A compulsory turn-out (8)

11a   Blue tits flying offer something deaf people may appreciate (8)

A tit^{[Britannica Concise Encyclopedia]} is any of several songbirds closely related to the chickadee, including the great tit (Parus major), found in Europe, North Africa, and Asia and the tufted titmouse (Parus bicolor), native to North America. These birds are called either "chickadees" or "titmice" in North America, and just "tits" in the rest of the English-speaking world.^[7]

The blue tit^[5] (Parus caeruleus) is a small tit (songbird) with a blue cap, greenish-blue back, and yellow underparts, widespread in Eurasia and NW Africa.

12a   Cycle  chain? (6)

13a   Change sides (5,2,5)

16a   Today's charge for electricity? (7,5)

As I like to look at it, in some clues, the primary and secondary indication are not definition and wordplay but (as in this clue) definition and elaboration. Thus the primary indication (definition) would be "today's charge" with the secondary indication (elaboration) being "for electricity".

19a   Did not see but heard spray (6)

21a   Legal man shifting on treaty (8)

23a   Suggestive of financial aid in hiring charge (8)

Redolent^[10] (followed by of or with) means reminiscent or suggestive (of)   ⇒ a picture redolent of the 18th century.

24a   Manages to rope in live artist (6)

Sir Peter Paul Rubens^[5] (1577–1640) was a Flemish painter. The foremost exponent of northern Baroque, he is best known for his portraits and mythological paintings featuring voluptuous female nudes, as in Venus and Adonis (circa 1635).

25a   Also seen in the guise of a dandy (2,4)

Swell^[5] is dated slang for a fashionable or stylish person of wealth or high social position ⇒ a crowd of city swells.

26a   Not all there being called into action (8)

Down

2d   Swallow or dove circling over ancient city (6)

Ur^[5] is an ancient Sumerian city that formerly existed on the Euphrates, in southern Iraq. It was one of the oldest cities of Mesopotamia, dating from the 4th millennium BC, and reached its zenith in the late 3rd millennium BC.

3d   A student's destiny to get grant (5)

The cryptic crossword convention of L meaning learner or student arises from the L-plate^[7], a square plate bearing a sans-serif letter L, for learner, which must be affixed to the front and back of a vehicle in various countries (including the UK) if its driver is a learner under instruction.

4d   Force prisoners to take exercise (9)

5d   Pins inserted into joints (7)

... on a barbeque, perhaps.

6d   Unfortunately one is taken in by it (5)

This is a semi & lit. (semi-all-in-one) clue. The entire clue serves as the definition while the first portion of the clue forms the wordplay.

7d   Appearing every second (9)

8d   Particularly  the highest (5,3)

13d   An all-star cast? (9)

An astrologer is said to cast^[5] a horoscope.

14d   Possibly terrorise a noisy carouser (9)

15d   Work  shop? (8)

17d   Formed a queue at the back (7)

Plait^[3,4,11] is not a word that I would ever use, preferring the word braid instead. The pronunciation of the word differs markedly between Britain (plat, rhyming with flat) and North America (plate).

In the surface reading, we are expected to interpret queue^[5] in the chiefly British sense of  a line or sequence of people or vehicles awaiting their turn to be attended to or to proceed. However, in the cryptic analysis we must recognize that queue is an archaic name for a plait of hair worn at the back.

18d   Irishman goes to church for spiritual guidance (6)

The Church of England^[10] (abbreviation CE^[10]) is the reformed established state Church in England, Catholic in order and basic doctrine, with the Sovereign as its temporal head.

20d   Stay and brood (5)

In Scottish dialect (as well as South African dialect), stay^[5] means to live permanently ⇒ where do you stay?. In the Scottish lowlands (in particular), "stay" would be a synonym for "dwell", whereas in most places it would merely indicate a sojourn.

22d   Hood and sash worn in Royal Navy (5)

The Royal Navy^[5] (abbreviation RN^[5]) is the British navy.

Robin Hood^[5] was a semi-legendary English medieval outlaw, reputed to have robbed the rich and helped the poor. Although he is generally associated with Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, it seems likely that the real Robin Hood operated in Yorkshire in the early 13th century.

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