Friday, December 5, 2014 — DT 27535

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27535
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Monday, July 7, 2014
Setter Rufus (Roger Squires)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27535]
Big Dave's Crossword Blog Review Written By Miffypops
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

We expect a gentle puzzle from Rufus, and today's offering is more so than usual.

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. Explicit link words and phrases are enclosed in forward slashes (/link/) and implicit links are shown as double forward slashes (//).

Across

1a   Puzzle that has many twists and turns before being solved (6,4)

6a   Poems, /inspired by/ love of the French? (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.

 In French, the combination of the preposition de^[8] (meaning of) and les (the plural form of the definite article) becomes des.

10a   Around this time // I should be in credit with returned account (5)

11a   Slanderer /is/ not an incisive member of the set (9)

12a   Grand occasion, of course (8)

The Grand National^[5] is an annual horse race established in 1839, a steeplechase run over a course of 4 miles 856 yards (about 7,200 metres) with thirty jumps, at Aintree, Liverpool, in late March or early April. The race may be familiar as the setting for National Velvet^[7], a 1944 film based on the 1935 novel of the same name by British author Enid Bagnold (1889-1981). The film stars Mickey Rooney, Donald Crisp and a young Elizabeth Taylor.

13a   Times called in bars (5)

No, not closing time at the pub.

In music, tempo^[5] (plural tempos or tempi) denotes the speed at which a passage of music is or should be played.

15a   Spent money on things // -- like free-range eggs (4,3)

17a   Suppress background noise when playing // squash (7)

I believe that the words "when playing" are to be included in the first definition with the inference being that we interpret them to mean "when [the radio is] playing".

Squelch^[3,4] is an electric circuit that cuts off a radio receiver when the signal is too weak for reception of anything but noise. While none of my dictionaries show this word being used as a verb in this sense — as Rufus does in the clue, it is not a big leap to suppose that it could be so used.

Squelch^[3,4] can also mean to crush completely or squash.

19a   The largest Chinese flower (7)

The setter uses flower in a whimsical cryptic crossword sense meaning something that flows — in other words, a river.

The Yangtze^[5] is the principal river of China, which rises as the Jinsha in the Tibetan highlands and flows 6,380 km (3,964 miles) southwards then generally eastwards through central China, entering the East China Sea at Shanghai.

21a   Yet a cricketer is not out to improve his (7)

Batting average^[7] is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters. In cricket, a player's batting average is the total number of runs he has scored divided by the number of times he has been out. Thus the fewer times he has been out, the better his batting average.

22a   Teacher/'s/ pet that doesn't get to play out (5)

24a   Courses for non-drivers? (8)

This is a type of clue that we come to expect from Rufus. We are expected to fall into the trap of thinking that the clue is referring to golf courses. For more of the same, see 29a.

27a   The present animal should have no oral examination (4,5)

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth^[5] is a proverb cautioning one not to find fault with something that you have discovered or been given. It is premised on the practice of prospective purchasers to inspect the condition of a horse's teeth.

28a   Poetically inferior to // place in Wales (5)

Neath^[7] is a town and community situated in the principal area of Neath Port Talbot, Wales with a population of 19,258 in 2011.

29a   Imposed duty (4)

I'm afraid I don't comprehend Miffypops' comment on this clue. To me, it is one of Rufus' notorious "barely cryptic" clues in which we are expected to fall into the trap of interpreting the clue as a reference to a customs duty.

Reading through the comments on Big Dave's blog, I see that others share my view.

30a   Spring locks outside, // makes an illegal entry (10)

Down

1d   Sweet // music? (4)

In Britain, a sweet^[5] is a small shaped piece of confectionery made with sugar ⇒ a bag of sweets. In other words, sweets would be candy^[5] to us and a sweet is what we would refer to as a piece of candy.

In Britain, rock^[5] is a kind of hard confectionery in the form of cylindrical peppermint-flavoured sticks ⇒ a stick of rock.

2d   Savage // ban is repeatedly put on Scotsman (9)

If a Scotsman makes an appearance is Crosswordland, he is almost certain to be named Ian.

3d   Shade giving cover for troops (5)

4d   It can be arranged /for/ ministers (7)

5d   Secures // damages (7)

7d   Corporation lawyer is first /to get/ information (5)

Corporation^[3,4,5,11] is a dated humorous term for a large paunch or pot belly.

Tum^[10] is an informal or childish word for stomach.

In the US, a district attorney^[5] (abbreviation DA) is a public official who acts as prosecutor for the state in a particular district.

Datum^[5] (plural data) is a piece of information ⇒ the fact is a datum worth taking into account.

8d   Shattering in pieces? // Correct (10)

9d   Busts are being developed // beyond comprehension (8)

14d   Dramatist /in/ predicament is unusually wary (10)

Harold Pinter^[5] (1930–2008) [mentioned by Miffypops in his review] was an English dramatist, actor, and director. His plays are associated with the Theatre of the Absurd and are typically marked by a sense of menace. Notable plays: The Birthday Party (1958), The Caretaker (1960), and Party Time (1991). Nobel Prize for Literature (2005).

16d   Completely // wrong? Correct (8)

18d   Times of scarcity won't worry Mr Sprat (4,5)

Jack Sprat^[7] is is an English language nursery rhyme. The most common modern version of the rhyme is:

Jack Sprat could eat no fat.

His wife could eat no lean.

And so between them both, you see,

They licked the platter clean.

20d   Ruler, // pre-Rome, under a new constitution (7)

21d   Work and play may be the same to her (7)

23d   Uses Polish // enthusiasts? (5)

25d   At break of dawn, a girl /appears/ (5)

Contrary to Miffypops' assertion, the "a" is not part of the definition, but rather is included in the wordplay which is an anagram of (at break of) DAWN followed by the A (from the clue).

Despite being found at the end of the clue, the word "appears" functions very much like a link word (and I have marked it as such). This can be seen by undoing the inverted structure of the clue:

• Girl /appears/ at break of dawn a (5)

Of course, unravelling the clue in this manner totally destroys its surface reading.

26d   Huts may be built // in this way (4)

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