Tuesday, February 24, 2015 — DT 27592

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27592
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, September 11, 2014
Setter Shamus (Philip Marlow)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27592]
Big Dave's Crossword Blog Review Written By Kath
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

I thoroughly enjoyed solving this puzzle and, as you can see from her five star rating for enjoyment, so did Kath who reviewed this puzzle on Big Dave's blog.

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   Intense blow wrought // sporting injury (6,5)

9a   Bank facility // is put back in store by a titled figure reportedly (7,7)

A count^[5] is a foreign [to the UK, presumably] nobleman whose rank corresponds to that of an earl.

11a   Speed // of car at event (4)

12a   Archdeacon facing American // space traveller (5)

I'm afraid that things Anglican are not my forte.

Ven.^[5] is the abbreviation for Venerable (as the title of an archdeacon) ⇒ the Ven. William Davies. An archdeacon^[5] is a senior Christian cleric (in the early Church a deacon, in the modern Anglican Church a priest) to whom a bishop delegates certain responsibilities.

13a   Preserve // part of castle (4)

A keep^[5] is the strongest or central tower of a castle, acting as a final refuge.

16a   Foreigner largely full of hypocritical talk /in/ Spanish city (8)

Alicante^[5] is a seaport on the Mediterranean coast of southeastern Spain, the capital of a province of the same name; population 331,750 (2008).

17a   Neat queue /to get/ soup (6)

Neat^[5] is an archaic term for a bovine animal or, as a mass noun, cattle. 

In heraldry, queue^[1] [a French word meaning 'tail'] denotes the tail of an animal.

19a   Persuasive // man in business? (6)

The question mark is a gentle hint that we are to treat the wordplay as an entire phrase. A "man in business" might also be called a businessman or, perhaps, even a company man.

20a   House no type built /as/ a centre of attraction (8)

The solution could be considered to be "a centre of attraction" in all its senses.

Honeypot^[5] is a [seemingly — on the basis of dictionary entries — chiefly British] term for (1) an enticing source of pleasure or reward ⇒ massive increases in government purchases became a honeypot for the unscrupulous  or (2) a place to which many people are attracted ⇒ the tourist honeypot of St Ives. Even in its literal sense, the word connotes attraction. A honeypot^[5] is a container for honey ⇒ she always had men hovering round her like bees round a honeypot. Finally, honeypot^[5] is also vulgar slang for a woman's genitals.

22a   Army division // kept back by government in unrest (4)

In the definition, the word "division" is used more in a generic — rather than military — sense.

23a   Nervous // characteristic of cricket? (5)

24a   Musical group // finding port after time (4)

Rio de Janeiro^[5] (commonly known as Rio) is a city in eastern Brazil, on the Atlantic coast; population 6,093,472 (2007). The chief port of Brazil, it was the country’s capital from 1763 until 1960, when it was replaced by Brasilia.

27a   Slippery customer that'll give you a squeeze and take you out? (3,11)

28a   Trap a couple that's disrupted // legal body (6,5)

Down

2d   Urge late critic developed /to get/ instrument (8,6)

3d   Idea with time I abandoned /in/ middle of day (4)

4d   Dagger, // note, left in fight (8)

In music, ti^[2] (or te) is the seventh note of the major scale in sol-fa notation. Judging by entries in American and British dictionaries, the only recognized spelling in the US would seem to be ti^[3,4,11] whereas, in the UK, the principal spelling would appear to be te^[2,3,4,11], with ti as an alternative spelling in some dictionaries. Oxford Dictionaries Online provides less leeway, giving the spelling as te^[5] with ti shown as the North American spelling.

5d   Measure taken at sea /in/ alliance (6)

A league^[2] is a nautical measure equal to 3 international nautical miles (3.456 statute miles or 5.556 km).

6d   In the past, // a circle joined by Northern Anglicans (4)

An Anglican^[5] is a a member of any of the Anglican Churches where Anglican^[5] (as an adjective) means relating to or denoting the Church of England or any Church in communion with it. The term comes from the Latin phrase Anglicana ecclesia 'the English church' in the Magna Carta.

The Church of England^[10] (abbreviation CE^[10]) is the reformed established state Church in England, Catholic in order and basic doctrine, with the Sovereign as its temporal head.

7d   Place requiring stiff observance? (7,7)

Stiff^[5] is an informal term for a dead body.

8d   One with a lot of influence in Victoria, say, /gets/ contract (11)

London Victoria station^[7], generally known as Victoria, is a central London railway terminus and London Underground complex named after nearby Victoria Street. With over 73 million passenger entries and exits between April 2010 and March 2011, Victoria is the second-busiest terminus in London (and the UK) after Waterloo, and includes an air terminal for passengers travelling by train to Gatwick Airport. The area around the station is an important interchange for other forms of transport: a local bus station is in the forecourt, and Victoria Coach Station for long-distance road coaches is nearby.

Like Kath, I thought that a stipulation was "more a condition in a contract than a contract itself". However, as she points out, that is not the case according to The Chambers Dictionary (aka the Big Red Book or BRB) where a stipulation^[1] is defined as a contract.

10d   Bits of food // generated outspoken surprised expression (11)

Crumbs^[5] (a euphemism for Christ) is an informal British exclamation used to express dismay or surprise ⇒ ‘Crumbs,’ said Emily, ‘how embarrassing.’

14d   Sweltering area undressed Nordics appreciate principally (5)

Kath missed the point that this is an &lit.^[7] clue. The entire clue is both definition and wordplay. As for the illustration, surely true Nordics would not be wrapped in towels.

15d   Top // Forty in Rome on radio (5)

Top^[11] means to surpass, excel, or outdo ⇒ That tops everything.

18d   Soldier finding two rivers entering part of sea? (8)

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.

The Coral Sea^[5] is a part of the western Pacific lying between Australia, New Guinea, and Vanuatu, the scene of a naval battle between US and Japanese carriers in 1942.

21d   Follow // holder of money around university (6)

25d   John Prescott's first // circular manoeuvre (4)

John^[5] is an informal chiefly North American [as several comments on Big Dave's blog point out] term for a toilet ⇒ you have to walk across the stage to get to the john.

Loo^[5] is an informal British term for a toilet.

Scratching the Surface
John Prescott[7], Baron Prescott, is a British politician who was the Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007.

26d   Resounding noise // that may introduce foxtrot? (4)

I wavered over how to classify this clue, eventually settling on a double definition. I interpret the latter part of the clue to be a cryptic definition denoting "[something] that comes before foxtrot".

Foxtrot^[5] is a code word representing the letter F, used in radio communication.

Echo^[5] is a code word representing the letter E, used in radio communication.

Scratching the Surface
The foxtrot[5] is a ballroom dance having an uneven rhythm with alternation of slow and quick steps.

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