Tuesday, June 24, 2014 — DT 27413

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27413
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Friday, February 14, 2014
Setter Giovanni (Don Manley)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27413]
Big Dave's Crossword Blog Review Written By Deep Threat
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 fully parsing the clue █ - unsolved or incorrect prior to visiting Big Dave's Crossword Blog █ - solved with aid of checking letters provided by solutions from Big Dave's Crossword Blog █ - reviewed by Falcon for Big Dave's Crossword Blog █ - yet to be solved

Introduction

Oh dear! I was feeling pretty smug this morning, having completed this without electronic assistance. This despite not solving a single across clue on the first read through (fortunately, the down clues were not so obstinate). Then my balloon is burst when I discover that Deep Threat has rated it as meriting only a single star for difficulty.

Happy St-Jean Baptiste Day to readers in Québec. Unfortunately, it looks like celebrations will be more than a touch soggy.

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.

Primary indications (definitions) are marked with a solid underline in the clue; subsidiary indications (be they wordplay or other) are marked with a dashed underline in all-in-one (& lit.) clues, semi-all-in-one (semi-& lit.) clues and cryptic definitions.

Across

1a   Some wrote to musician about choral composition (5)

A motet^[5] is a short piece of sacred choral music.

4a   Sound and smell coming from game (4-4)

Pong^[5] is an informal British term that means (1), as a noun, a strong, unpleasant smell ⇒ corked wine has a powerful pong and (2), as a verb, to smell strongly and unpleasantly ⇒ the place just pongs of dirty clothes.

In his review, Deep Threat refers to a discredited claim made at the Beijing Olympics by London mayor Boris Johnson^[7] that ping-pong was originally a Victorian English invention called whiff-whaff.

8a   Mathematically able to work out true mean (8)

In mathematics, mean^[5] is another name for average.

9a   To our sort, piece of jewellery is outstanding (8)

11a   City house — one no good is coming back (7)

The City^[5] [or here, simply City] is short for the City of London. Take note that the City of London^[5] is not the same thing as the city of London, but merely the part of London situated within the ancient boundaries and governed by the Lord Mayor and the Corporation^[5] [in Britain, a group of people elected to govern a city, town, or borough is called a Corporation].

The City is also a metonym for the financial and commercial institutions located in the City of London ⇒ (i) the Budget got a stony reception from the City; (ii) a City analyst. This is analogous to the use of the terms Wall Street and Bay Street to refer to the financial institutions located in New York and Toronto respectively.

In the clue, the setter uses "City" as a surrogate for for the EC postcode which serves the City of London [postcode being the British counterpart of the Canadian postal code or American zip code]. The EC (Eastern Central) postcode area^[7] (also known as the London EC postcode area) is a group of postcode districts in central London, England. It includes almost all of the City of London as well as parts of several other London boroughs.

13a   What’s offensive in goon’s laughter (9)

15a   Curse Tom, possibly, as someone who won’t conform (7,8)

This is an inverse wordplay type of clue — specifically an inverse anagram (or, as Deep Threat refers to it in his review, a reverse anagram). The solution to the clue consists of an anagram indicator and its fodder, with the result of the anagram operation being found in the clue itself. The solution to the clue is AWKWARD CUSTOMER (someone who won't conform) which, in a cryptic crossword, could be (possibly) used as wordplay indicating an anagram (awkward) of CUSTOMER giving the result CURSE TOM.

An awkward customer^[2] is someone who is difficult or inconvenient to deal with.

18a   Dwelling — note how that’s arranged to accommodate you and me (4,5)

21a   Gather information from socialite on fire with excitement (7)

22a   Flower arrangements placed initially in holiday cottages? (8)

A chaplet^[5] is a garland or circlet for a person’s head.

Butlins^[7] (also Butlin's) [mentioned by Deep Threat in his review] is a chain of large holiday camps in the United Kingdom. Holiday camp^[5] is a British term for a site for holidaymakers with accommodation, entertainment, and leisure facilities.

24a   Travel to old city at the back of tribe making noise (8)

Ur^[5] is an ancient Sumerian city formerly 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.

25a   Take as a hypothesis charged particle’s location (8)

26a   Far end of chapel possesses a particularly sacred place (5)

Lhasa^[5] is the capital of Tibet; population 156,100 (est. 2006). It is situated in the northern Himalayas at an altitude of 3,600 m (circa 11,800 ft), on a tributary of the Brahmaputra. Its inaccessibility and the unwillingness of the Tibetan Buddhist priests to receive foreign visitors—to whom Lhasa was closed until the 20th century—earned it the title of the Forbidden City. The spiritual centre of Tibetan Buddhism, Lhasa was the seat of the Dalai Lama until 1959, when direct Chinese administration was imposed on the city.

Down

1d   Personal assistant in isle’s new tavern (3-7)

The Isle of Man (abbreviation IOM)^[5] is an island in the Irish Sea which is a British Crown dependency.

2d   Weapon making man a war-oriented type (8)

3d   Taro — it’ll get cooked for food (8)

4d   Love delving into favourite writer (4)

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.

5d   European city has information on girl (6)

Gen^[5] is British slang for information ⇒ you’ve got more gen on him than we have.

Geneva^[5] is a city in southwestern Switzerland, on Lake Geneva; population 179,971 (2007). It is the headquarters of international bodies such as the Red Cross, various organizations of the United Nations, and the World Health Organization.

6d   Having gin, now get drunk (6)

7d   Drink 80% of stuff served up (4)

10d   Old item of furniture in which second dog is hidden (8)

12d   Burst of passion about ancient diamonds and other valuable stuff (4,4)

In addition to being a sudden strong rush of wind, gust^[5] may mean a sudden burst of something such as rain, sound, or emotion.

Diamonds^[2]) (abbreviation D^[2]) is a suit of cards.

14d   Land volunteers admitting blunder before wood starts to mature again (5,5)

In the UK, the Territorial Army (TA)^[5] is a volunteer force locally organized to provide a reserve of trained and disciplined manpower for use in an emergency.

16d   Court has judicial proceeding with break for food (8)

17d   Canadian location of boatman sailing freely round island (8)

19d   In the country it’s hard to find big animals (6)

H^[5] is an abbreviation for hard, as used in describing grades of pencil lead ⇒ a 2H pencil.

20d   Wood inside the plastic protective covering (6)

22d   Homeless composer from Poland is cut up (4)

To aid in interpreting the clue, it may help to replace "homeless composer" with "composer with no home".

Frédéric Chopin^[5] (1810–1849) was a Polish-born French composer and pianist. Writing almost exclusively for the piano, he composed numerous mazurkas and polonaises inspired by Polish folk music, as well as nocturnes, preludes, and two piano concertos (1829; 1830).

23d   Third grade in hospital’s medical examination (4)

San^[5] is an informal term for what is known in Britain as a sanatorium^[5] and in the US as a sanitarium^[5].

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