Friday, February 7}, 2014 — DT 27312

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27312
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Friday, October 18, 2013
Setter Giovanni (Don Manley)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27312]
Big Dave's Crossword Blog Review Written By Gazza
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 █ - solved but without being able to fully parse the clue █ - unsolved or incorrect prior to visiting Big Dave's blog █ - reviewed by Falcon for Big Dave's blog █ - yet to be solved

Introduction

I got through much of this prior to the start of the opening ceremonies for the Winter Olympics, then completed it during commercial breaks. As it turned out, that provided more than ample time.

After struggling with 14d (my last one in) for an extended period of time, I had to chuckle when the penny finally dropped. Surely, a Canadian — of all people — should have easily gotten that one!

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   Spoilt socialite girl once set about keeping delicate (8)

A debutante^[2] (shortened colloquial form deb^[2]) is a young woman making her first formal appearance as an adult in upper-class society, usually at a ball. Although none of my dictionary sources indicated that debutante balls are an out-dated practice, they may well be — at least, the setter seems to believe this to be the case, as evidenced by his use of the word "once" in the clue.

5a   Fighting that brings lawsuit (6)

9a   Admit fees may be ridiculous, giving up too easily? (9)

11a   Game in which valuable instrument gets knocked over (5)

A Stradivarius^[5] (informally a Strad^[5]) is a violin or other stringed instrument made by Italian violin-maker Antonio Stradivari (circa 1644–1737) or his followers.

12a   Fairies, with the first sign of hunger, pass away (6)

In Persian mythology, a peri^[5] is a mythical superhuman being, originally represented as evil but subsequently as a good or graceful genie or fairy.

13a   Puffed up? One man's the opposite of that inside (8)

The wordplay is I (one) + NED (man) containing ('s ... inside; has inside) FLAT (the opposite of that [the grammatical antecedent of "that" being "puffed up"]).

In the surface reading, the 's is a contraction for is, but in the cryptic analysis it becomes a contraction for has.

15a   Tramp's chancer on the move -- he recycles useful stuff (5,8)

In Britain, chancer^[2,5] is a derogatory informal term for a person who exploits any opportunity to further their own ends, whether honestly or dishonestly ⇒ Prague was full of young chancers, bored with the City.

In the surface reading, the phrase "tramp's chancer on the move ..." means "Tramp is [a] chancer on the move ..." and not — as it first appeared to me — "A chancer belonging to a tramp [is] on the move ...".

In Britain, scrap merchant^[5] is an alternative name for a scrap dealer.

18a   One detects a lot of different lines in the supermarket (7,6)

22a   Surprise in wood -- great weight is buried (8)

23a   Very big drink that's rubbish, litre swallowed (6)

26a   Person deemed to be good -- and bad, for all that (5)

27a   In new arrangement hide plain plants (9)

Delphinium^[2] (plural delphiniums or delphinia) a garden plant with tall spikes of usually blue flowers.

28a   Powerful warplane gaining height, latest in technology (6)

A MiG^[7] is a type of Russian jet fighter. The name comes from the initials of the two founders (Mikoyan and Gurevich) of the organization that designs the planes.

29a   Rose maybe is an acceptable model (8)

In general, a standard^[5] is a tree or shrub that grows on an erect stem of full height. A standard rose^[10] is a rose which has a long stem.

Down

1d   University accommodation set up in most superior capital (8)

Budapest^[5] is the capital of Hungary; population 1,712,210 (2009). The city was formed in 1873 by the union of the hilly city of Buda on the right bank of the River Danube with the low-lying city of Pest on the left.

2d   Conclude there's no escaping from hell (5)

3d   Is the boss giving warning in America? (5-2)

It would seem that this clue escapes being considered a double definition due to the existence of the hyphen in the numeration. In the wordplay, "heads up" (without a hyphen) is another way of saying "is the boss".

Heads-up^[1] is a North American term used as a warning that something is going to happen. It is also spelled heads-up^[5] at Oxford Dictionaries Online [which, by the way, does not characterise the expression as being North American] but heads up^[10] in Collins English Dictionary [which describes the term as being mainly US and Canadian].

4d   Row, missing edges in lake (4)

It took me a while to figure out that each of the missing edges is an S. I find it difficult to think of row and series being synonyms. However, Collins English Dictionary does list series^[10] (a group or connected succession of similar or related things, usually arranged in order) as a synonym of row^[10] (an arrangement of persons or things in a line); on the other hand, it does not list row as a synonym of series.

6d   Mark Liverpudlian songstress enthralling journalist (7)

Liverpudlian^[5] means (1) a native of Liverpool or (2) the dialect or accent of people from Liverpool ⇒ she answered in nasal Liverpudlian; used as an adjective, Liverpudlian denotes relating to Liverpool ⇒ a Liverpudlian accent.

Cilla Black^[7] (born Priscilla White) is an English singer, actress, entertainer and media personality who hails from Liverpool. She began her career as a singer in 1963. Her recording of "Anyone Who Had a Heart" (1964) was the UK's biggest selling single by a female artist in the 1960s. After a successful recording career in the 1960s and early 1970s, and a brief time as a comedy actress in the 1970s, Black became a prominent television presenter [host] in the 1980s and 1990s.In 2013, Black celebrated 50 years in show business.

A cedilla^[5] is a character placed underneath a c before a, o, or u, especially in French, Portuguese, or Catalan, denoting that it is to be pronounced (s), not (k). The same character is used in the scripts of other languages, as in Turkish under s.

7d   Educated girl being restricted, awfully tired and angry (9)

Educating Rita^[7] is a 1980 stage comedy by British playwright Willy Russell that was the basis of a 1983 Academy Award winning film featuring Michael Caine and Julie Walters.

To my mind, while the wordplay indicates that RITA is contained in something, it really doesn't specify that it is contained in an anagram of TIRED — although, I suppose, there is no other possibility. I would have been far more satisfied had the clue been worded:

• Angry and awfully tired, educated girl restricted (9)

which, I believe, does imply that RITA is contained in an anagram of TIRED. But perhaps this is just a personal mental block.

8d   End of match? Numbers go into 'iding (2-4)

In rugby, no-side^[10] (spelled no side^[5] at Oxford Dictionaries Online) is the end of a match, signalled by the referee's whistle ⇒ the whistle went for no side.

Being unfamiliar with the rugby terminology, and considering the use of "go into 'iding" to be an exceeding weak manner of clueing 'IDE (one which I thought uncharacteristic of Giovanni), I avoided recording the solution for a very long time. Finally, I checked the dictionary and did find the rugby term.

10d   After a while thief gets alias (8)

Nicker may be real word or — as I did not find it listed in any of my dictionaries — it may be a word invented by the setter. In any case, it means someone who nicks. Nick^[5] is an informal British term meaning to steal ⇒ she nicked fivers from the till.

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

14d   What's to get stirred up about, being moved from slums? (8)

How ironic, eh, that this was the last clue in for this Canadian!

16d   Denying what ram may be doing again! (9)

17d   Release worker providing blank cheque (4,4)

19d   Lock of hair enclosed by adoring letterwriter (7)

20d   Listener subsequently like a crock? (7)

21d   European male getting round capital of Malta in cab (6)

Historically, a hansom^[5] (or hansom cab) was a two-wheeled horse-drawn cab accommodating two inside, with the driver seated behind.

24d   The two characters making pa a beast (5)

The two characters are P AND A.

25d   It's almost total laziness in niche of organisation (4)

A slot^[3] is a position of employment in an organization or hierarchy or, as expressed by Chambers, a niche in an organization^[1,2].

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