Wednesday, December 31, 2014 — DT 27553

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27553
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Monday, July 28, 2014
Setter Rufus (Roger Squires)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27553]
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

This puzzle should not delay your plans for New Year's Eve — unless, like me, you get distracted by British footwear. That digression led me eventually to insurance fraud in 19th century Britain.

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 (//). Definitions presented in blue text are for terms that appear frequently.

Across

1a   A sitter becoming // performer (7)

5a   Part of the rigging // works in the end (7)

One could say that there is an error in the clue— or one could take the view that the setter has exercised a degree of cryptic licence. It is understandable that one might think that the plural of op. (abbreviation for opus) would be ops. — certainly both the setter and Miffypops seem to believe that.

However, while the plural of opus^[5] is opuses or opera, the plural form of the abbreviation seems to be Opp.

9a   We must invade hill // fort (5)

A tor^[5] is a hill or rocky peak.

A tower^[4] is a place of defence or retreat.

10a   Munitions // produced by man and master (9)

11a   Rags to riches story // recalled in new adaptation (10)

Cinderella^[7], or The Little Glass Slipper is a European folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression in Histoires ou contes du temps passé published by Charles Perrault in 1697, and by the Brothers Grimm in their folk tale collection Grimms' Fairy Tales (1812).

A pantomime^[5] [mentioned by Miffypops in his review] is a traditional British theatrical entertainment, mainly for children, which involves music, topical jokes, and slapstick comedy and is based on a fairy tale or nursery story, usually produced around Christmas.

12a   Wine /from/ Castile (4)

Castile^[5] is a region of central Spain, on the central plateau of the Iberian peninsula, formerly an independent Spanish kingdom.

Asti^[7] (formerly known as Asti Spumante) is a sparkling white Italian wine that is produced throughout southeastern Piedmont but is particularly focused around the towns of Asti and Alba. Since 1993 the wine has been classified as a Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG) and as of 2004 was Italy's largest producing appellation.

14a   Where strategies are devised /for/ a chess match? (5,7)

18a   An overdrawn account (12)

21a   Agreed /it's/ over (4)

22a   Good man, and single, /will get/ to outclass all rivals (5,5)

25a   In which somebody is travelling flat out? (9)

26a   What one may get from a maid easy on the eye? (5)

This is an &lit.^[7] clue (sometimes called an all-in-one clue). The entire clue (when read one way) is the definition, but under a different interpretation takes on the roll of wordplay.

The wordplay tells us that the solution is hidden in (what one may get from) a maID EASy on the eye. Since "easy on the eye" is a meaningful phrase, we can consider it to be included in the hidden word fodder in its entirety.

27a   Difficult choice // to overthrow top woman (7)

28a   Where man cuts adrift? (7)

I would call this a semi-&lit. clue rather than a true &lit. clue. While the entire clue provides the definition, only the portion with the dashed underline is needed for the wordplay.

Down

1d   New act with hat /and/ stick (6)

2d   Pulling // to side (6)

3d   Not requiring further proof, // as might be expected (4,6)

4d   Girl needs two keys // to escape (5)

5d   Spell-check // 'restriction' (4,5)

6d   It may be worn /and/ [it may be] well-used (4)

The first three words of the clue are implicitly part of both definitions — which, for clarity, I have chosen to explicitly indicate.

A pump is a shoe on both sides of the Atlantic — albeit rather different on this side from what it is on the other side.

In North America, a pump^[3] is a woman's shoe that has medium or high heels and no fastenings. This type of shoe is known in Britain as a court shoe^[5].

On the other hand, in the UK,  a pump^[2,5,10] is either (1) a low-cut low-heeled shoe without fastenings, worn especially for dancing; (2) a plain, low-cut flat shoe for women or (3), chiefly in Northern England, a type of shoe with a rubber sole, used in games such as tennis; in other words, a gymshoe, sports shoe, trainer or plimsoll.

Plimsoll^[5] (also plimsole) is a British name for a light rubber-soled canvas shoe, worn especially for sports. One would guess that the alternate spelling derives from a confusion with the word "sole". The name is actually believed to come from the resemblance of the side of the sole to a Plimsoll line^[5], a marking on a ship’s side showing the limit of legal submersion when loaded with cargo under various sea conditions — named after Samuel Plimsoll (1824–1898), the English politician whose agitation in the 1870s resulted in the Merchant Shipping Act of 1876, ending the practice of sending to sea overloaded and heavily insured old ships, from which the owners profited if they sank.

7d   He doesn't know what to believe (8)

8d   Lots /of/ beatings (8)

Lashings^[5] is an informal British term for a copious amount of something, especially food or drink ⇒ chocolate cake with lashings of cream.

13d   Coordinate new // colour scheme? (10)

Here the question mark indicates that we have a definition by example; that is, "colour scheme" is but an example of — or one aspect of — the solution.

15d   Land of Hope (9)

Ruritania^[5] is an imaginary kingdom in central Europe used as a fictional background for the adventure novels of courtly intrigue and romance written by English novelist and playwright Anthony Hope (1863–1933).

16d   Outstanding part of the country (8)

17d   Consumer whose tastes are all too human (8)

19d   Very convincing // businessman? (6)

20d   Goods thrown out from ships /and/ planes in the morning (6)

23d   Observed holding a number up, // of necessity (5)

Terms such as "a number", "a large number", "many" or "a great many" are often indicators that a Roman numeral is required.

Needs^[5] is an archaic term denoting 'of necessity' as in the phrase 'must needs (or needs must) do something' meaning cannot avoid or cannot help doing something ⇒ they must needs depart.

24d   Shellfish // 100 pounds a thousand (4)

My eyebrows raised when I read Miffypops comment that L is the "avoirdupois abbreviation for pounds". However, after a bit of research I discovered that The Chambers Dictionary does, in fact, define the upper case L^[1] as the abbreviation for pound sterling (usually written £) and the lower case l^[1] as the abbreviation for pound weight (usually written lb). Both derive from the Latin word Libra.

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