Monday, March 9, 2015 — DT 27601

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27601
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Monday, September 22, 2014
Setter Rufus (Roger Squires)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27601]
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

Once again the planets have aligned and the "Monday" puzzle appears on Monday. I did stumble near the finish line and needed a bit of electronic help to push me across.

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   Insect family with extensive members (5-4-4)

The name daddy-long-legs is applied to different insects in Britain and North America. The British insects do seem to constitute a family in the taxonomic sense of the word. However, the North American insects comprise an order, thereby making them members of many different families.

In Britain, daddy-long-legs^[5] is an informal name for a crane fly^[5], any of many genera and species of slender two-winged fly of the family Tipulidae with very long legs.

In North America, daddy-long-legs^[5] is an informal name for a harvestman^[5], an arachnid of the order Opiliones with a globular body and very long thin legs, typically living in leaf litter and on tree trunks.

10a   Incite // it in a football crowd (7)

There is really nothing specific to football about this clue. It could be adapted equally well to any paying crowd.

11a   Warning -- /it's/ a mock auction (7)

12a   Get a larger size (4)

13a   Duplicator initially needs it to // copy (5)

14a   Pen note // that the doctor should look at (4)

In clues of this structure, mentally insert the word "something" (or "someone", if appropriate) before the word "that" in the definition. The clue is telling us that the wordplay produces a result which is [something] that the doctor should examine.

17a   A drifter of a coldly detached nature (7)

Cryptic definitions of this sort are comprised of two elements. The part that I consider to be the primary indication is shown with a solid underline and tells us that the solution is something that drifts. The portion of the clue with the dashed underline (which I consider to be the subsidiary indication) provides additional cryptic elaboration on attributes of the drifter.

18a   Nurse in bizarre sex case // holds out (7)

19a   I'm in favour /yet/ show displeasure (7)

Grace^[5] is the the condition or fact of being favoured by someone ⇒ he fell from grace with the tabloids after he was sent off for swearing.

22a   Atlantic liner docked next to a // Queen (7)

The RMS [Royal Mail Ship] Titanic^[5] was a British passenger liner, the largest ship in the world when she was built and supposedly unsinkable, that struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic on her maiden voyage in April 1912 and sank with the loss of 1,490 lives.

Titania^[7] is a character in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream. In the play, she is the queen of the fairies.

Delving Deeper
In traditional folklore, the fairy queen has no name. Shakespeare took the name "Titania" from Ovid's Metamorphoses, where it is an appellation given to the daughters of Titans. Due to Shakespeare's influence, later fiction has often used the name "Titania" for fairy queen characters.

24a   Role reversal // that can let an actor down (4)

25a   Snail // that goes round and round and up and down (5)

A helix^[10] is any terrestrial gastropod mollusc of the genus Helix, which includes the garden snail (Helix aspersa).

A helix^[5] is an object having a three-dimensional shape like that of a wire wound uniformly in a single layer around a cylinder or cone, as in a corkscrew or spiral staircase. The latter perfectly fits the description in the clue — something that goes round and round and up and down.

26a   Feedback /for/ Miss Blyton? (4)

Enid Blyton^[5] (1897–1968) was an English writer of children’s fiction. Her best-known creation for young children is the character Noddy, who first appeared in 1949; her books for older children include the series of Famous Five and Secret Seven adventure stories.

29a   Unusual glee shown after getting a pass /in/ school (7)

30a   Foreign Legion's // drink (4,3)

Scratching the Surface
The Foreign Legion[5] is a military formation of the French army founded in the 1830s to fight France’s colonial wars. Composed, except for the higher ranks, of non-Frenchmen, the Legion was famed for its audacity and endurance. Its most famous campaigns were in French North Africa in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

31a   Tip some runners? Tell us! (5,3,5)

Runner^[2] is another term for runner bean^[5], a British name for the plant (Phaseolus coccineus) also called the scarlet runner (the name by which we know it in North America).

Down

2d   Notice one model /getting/ fat (7)

3d   Squirrel's home // moving three feet up (4)

Dray^[10] is an alternative spelling of drey^[5], the nest of a squirrel, typically in the form of a mass of twigs in a tree.

The wordplay is a reversal (moving ... up) of YARD (three feet).

4d   Reeling, a little drunk // giving the glad eye (7)

Give someone the glad eye^[5] is an informal, dated expression meaning to look at someone in a flirtatious way.

5d   Pet with a connection -- // one from the old school? (7)

6d   Celebrate // when double comes up (4)

Celebrate^[5] is used in the sense of to honour or praise publicly ⇒ a film celebrating the actor’s career.

Scratching the Surface
The surface reading may possibly be an allusion to throwing a double in craps[5], a gambling game played with two dice, chiefly in North America.

7d   It's good to pay attention /and/ look bright (7)

The abbreviation G^[10] for good likely relates to its use in grading school assignments or tests.

8d   Butt /for/ the flower under the ha-ha (8,5)

Stock^[5] denotes any of several species of herbaceous European plant that is cultivated for its fragrant lilac, pink, or white flowers.

9d   Getting // compassionate (13)

15d   Started // to plead over article (5)

16d   Speak /for/ the whole people (5)

20d   If a plan goes awry, you might be (2,1,4)

21d   Basic substance // that's used in heating (7)

22d   Attempts to reach high note // somewhere in Italy (7)

In music, te^[5] (or, in North America, ti) is the note B is the fixed-doh system of solmization. As I interpret it, the note B is the second highest note in an octave which comprises the notes C (doh or do), D (ray or re), E (me or mi), F (fah or fa), G (soh, so or sol), A (lah or la), B (te or, in North America, ti), C (doh or do).

Trieste^[5] is a city in northeastern Italy, the largest port on the Adriatic and capital of Friuli-Venezia Giulia region; population 205,341 (2008). Formerly held by Austria (1382–1918), Trieste was annexed by Italy after the First World War. The Free Territory of Trieste was created after the Second World War but returned to Italy in 1954.

Geographically Challenged
As pointed out in Comment #2 on Big Dave's blog, Trieste is located in northeastern Italy and not, as Miffypops states in his review, in "North west Italy".

23d   Go on, Ann, develop // a geometric figure (7)

A nonagon^[5] is a plane figure with nine straight sides and nine angles.

27d   Give players a hand (4)

28d   Accomplished // fellow with a certain bearing (4)

At Oxford and Cambridge universities, a fellow^[10] is a member of the governing body of a college who is usually a member of the teaching staff.

 A don^[10] is a member of the teaching staff at a university or college, especially at Oxford or Cambridge.

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