Tuesday, August 19, 2014 — DT 27453

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27453
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Setter Jay (Jeremy Mutch)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27453]
Big Dave's Crossword Blog Review Written By scchua
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

Those of you who solved the bonus puzzle in yesterday's blog get another chance to tackle one of Jay's puzzles. This one is not too difficult and is certainly enjoyable.

I invite you to leave a comment to let us know how you fared with the puzzle.

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   Leaving shop empty, flog a little (6)

4a   Suitable place by a quiet river in Italy (8)

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 Po^[7] is a river that arises in the Cottian Alps and flows eastward across northern Italy entering the Adriatic Sea through a delta near Venice.

10a   City's experience with right game played with balls (9)

Liverpool^[5] is a city and seaport in northwest England, situated at the east side of the mouth of the River Mersey; population 454,700 (est. 2009). Liverpool developed as a port in the 17th century with the import of cotton from America and the export of textiles produced in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and in the 18th century became an important centre of shipbuilding and engineering.

11a   Publication for children? (5)

12a   Crushed fabric (7)

13a   Bury's river not unknown by one million (7)

Bury^[7] is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies on the River Irwell, 7.9 miles (12.7 km) north-northwest of the city of Manchester. However, it is not "Bury's river" that is needed today, but rather one found not far away in Liverpool.

In mathematics (algebra, in particular), an unknown^[10] is a variable, or the quantity it represents, the value of which is to be discovered by solving an equation ⇒ 3y = 4x + 5 is an equation in two unknowns. [Unknowns are typically represented symbolically by the letters x, y and z.]

The Mersey^[5] is a river in northwestern England, which rises in the Peak District of Derbyshire and flows 112 km (70 miles) to the Irish Sea near Liverpool.

14a   Gag church after priest takes only regulars (5)

"Regulars" indicates that a regular sequence of letters is required. As is the case today, this usually means every second letter — although I recall at least one occasion where the required sequence was every third letter. As is customarily the situation, the setter does not specify whether we need the odd sequence or the even sequence — which we must figure out by trial and error.

15a   Make another effort to incorporate soldiers' records here (8)

A GI^[5] is a private soldier in the US army ⇒ she went off with a GI during the war. Contrary to popular belief, the term apparently is not an abbreviation for general infantryman, but rather derives from the term government (or general) issue (originally denoting equipment supplied to US forces).

18a   Barber's offering route to efficiency? (5,3)

Dictionaries do not agree on the spelling of the solution when used in the latter sense. The Chambers Dictionary and Collins English Dictionary both have it as short cut^[2,10] (two words) while Oxford Dictionaries Online as well as the two American dictionaries (The American Heritage Dictionary and the Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary) all have it as shortcut (a single word).

20a   As some say, volcanic rock produces a primitive life form (5)

Many English dialects, especially those spoken in southern England, feature an "intrusive 'r'" — that is, an 'r' is pronounced in the middle of a word where none exists in the spelling. In such dialects, the word "sawing" is pronounced 'SOARING' and the word "lava" is pronounced 'LARVA'.

23a   Strikes bringing in American relations (7)

25a   Trade union in fresh trial, in name only (7)

TU^[3,4,11] is the abbreviation for Trade Union.

26a   Irritable people who won't drink in sunlight (5)

Ratty^[5] is a British term meaning bad-tempered and irritable ⇒ I was a bit ratty with the children.

27a   Energy absorbed by modest or new instruments for measuring (9)

28a   Lied outrageously, held by head with no substance (8)

29a   A detailed brief point on land (6)

The setter uses "detailed" in a whimsical cryptic crossword sense meaning having the tail removed — based on an analogy with words such as deflowered or defrocked.

Down

1d   Milks row, working for 20 (8)

The numeral "20" in the clue is a cross reference indicator directing the solver to insert the solution to clue 20a in its place to complete the clue. In this case, the solution to 20a is the definition for the present clue.

By the way, those are not French fries in the photo that scchua uses to illustrate his hint — it is a plate of deep-fried silkworms.

2d   Young animal always protected by permit (7)

3d   Lie here if injured by brick? (9)

A stretcher^[5] is a brick or stone laid with its long side along the face of a wall.

5d   Where people vote for cutting radio broadcaster (7,7)

Poll^[5] means to cut the horns off (an animal, especially a young cow). In an archaic usage, it also means to cut off the top of (a tree or plant), typically to encourage further growth ⇒ there were some beautiful willows, and now the idiot Parson has polled them into wretched stumps.

6d   Love island engulfed in rising slander and loathing (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.

7d   Poor return is without profit ultimately for risk taker (7)

8d   Admittedly, cross-index Eternal City (6)

The Eternal City^[5] is a name for the city of Rome. However, here we must "lift and separate" the phrase, with the first part becoming part of the wordplay and the latter part forming the definition.

Exeter is a city in southwestern England, the county town of Devon, on the River Exe; population 109,200 (est. 2009). Exeter was founded by the Romans, who called it Isca.

9d   Machines that break down in the kitchen? (4,10)

16d   Talks incoherently of line in golf clubs given to son (9)

17d   The French must welcome a bridge game for two teams (8)

In French, the masculine singular form of the definite article is le^[8].

19d   Chased across area inhabited by ghosts (7)

21d   Finished up accepting fiction — outstanding work (7)

Relievo^[5] is another term for relief, a method of moulding, carving, or stamping in which the design stands out from the surface, to a greater (high relief) or lesser (low relief) extent.

22d   A great deal of panic, squashing a black beetle (6)

The scarab^[5] (also sacred scarab) is a large dung beetle (Scarabaeus sacer) of the eastern Mediterranean area, regarded as sacred in ancient Egypt.

24d   Equally divided, concealing rise of perfect state (5)

An idyll^[5] is an extremely happy, peaceful, or picturesque period or situation, typically an idealized or unsustainable one ⇒ the rural idyll remains strongly evocative in most industrialized societies.

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