Thursday, March 19, 2015 — DT 27609

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27609
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Wednesday, October 1, 2014
Setter Jay (Jeremy Mutch)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27609]
Big Dave's Crossword Blog Review Written By 2Kiwis
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

The review of today's puzzle on Big Dave's blog was written by the 2Kiwis, a blogging duo from New Zealand. Their intro, penned on October 1 last year, will soon be applicable in most of Canada. Of course, in Vancouver spring arrived weeks ago and, in Atlantic Canada, it is beginning to appear that spring may never arrive.

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   Add to // time given to flexible workforce (10)

6a   Drink, // but study intensively on the way back (4)

Marc^[5] is (1) the refuse of grapes or other fruit that have been pressed for winemaking ⇒ the spent marc can be seen in purple-black piles by the roadside or (2) an alcoholic spirit distilled from marc ⇒ working men sat over bowls of milky coffee and glasses of marc.

9a   Cool man read out // love letters? (3,4)

10a   Side worried about main // cause of sickness (7)

The main^[5] is an archaic or literary term for the open ocean.

12a   Factor /in/ payment (13)

14a   Caravans accommodating East European // students (8)

A train^[5] is a number of vehicles or pack animals moving in a line ⇒ a camel train.

15a   Make slow progress on son/'s/ writing (6)

17a   Become aware of // critic's review (6)

19a   Requisition fences in church? /That's/ improper (8)

Indent^[5] is a British term meaning to make a requisition or written order for something ⇒ we were indenting for paper clips one by one in those days.

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.

21a   Cause of differences /shown by/ love in poor ageing parent (10,3)

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.

24a   Meets // requirements for an empty grid? (7)

I needed a gentle nudge from my electronic assistants to help me discover the answer. Even then, I only realized that this is a double definition as I was writing the blog and found myself struggling with how to explain the clue. In the first definition, meets is used in the sense of satisfies (a need). The latter part of the clue is a cryptic definition for (as the 2Kiwis put it) "What an empty crossword [grid] is waiting for".

25a   Managed to discharge // rifle (7)

26a   Gloomy, // except for returning by day (4)

27a   Appraisal /of/ useful quality covering ship and crew (10)

In Crosswordland, you will find that a ship is almost invariably a steamship, the abbreviation for which is SS^[10].

Down

1d   And for this reason newspaper /is/ excessively sympathetic (4)

The Financial Times (FT)^[7] is a British international business newspaper [that is printed on conspicuous salmon pink newsprint].

2d   Criticise expert with a // remedy for all ills (7)

3d   Worryingly clever -- rang uni /for/ graphic representation of progress (8,5)

Scratching the Surface
Uni[5] is an informal [seemingly British] term for university ⇒ he planned to go to uni.

4d   Panama producer perhaps // mainly going without any on cruise ship (8)

A panama^[5] (also panama hat) is a man’s wide-brimmed hat of straw-like material, originally made from the leaves of a particular tropical palm tree.

5d   Reminder // head of government's got nothing on (5)

Did the setter have a crystal ball?
You may recall, from yesterday's blog, we discovered that British Conservative cabinet minister Brooks Newmark had resigned only days earlier after it became public that he had shared nude pictures of himself on social media with a newspaper reporter posing as a woman. While he was not a "head of government", he was head of a government department.

7d   Bean // counter turning up in a CIA broadcast (7)

I tried desperately for a long time to word CA (bean counter) into the wordplay.

he Central Intelligence Agency^[5] (abbreviation CIA) is a federal agency in the US responsible for coordinating government intelligence activities. Established in 1947 and originally intended to operate only overseas, it has since also operated in the US.

8d   Senate call for change -- /and/ a fresh start (5,5)

11d   Internet facilities for sourcing drivers? (6,7)

I really struggled to understand this clue. I must say that I find it tenuous even with the supplementary explanation given by the 2Kiwis in Comment #26 on Big Dave's blog.

I tried to craft an explanation built around "sourcing" relating to SEARCH and "drivers" equating to ENGINES. The latter part is not difficult; especially in a figurative sense, an engine is a driver ⇒ for many years oil has served as the engine of the Alberta economy.

With respect to the first part, I presumed that we were to interpret source^[5] in the sense of to find out where (something) can be obtained ⇒ she was called upon to source a supply of carpet. While this usage suggests a search process, I was not able to connect the final dots to my satisfaction.

However, the 2Kiwis offer a different interpretation. They suggest that "the ‘sourcing drivers’ are motorists contemplating buying a car" and in order to find the right one they would SEARCH ENGINES.

It still seems a bit ugly to me.

13d   Watch over // gun mainly carried by established model (5,5)

I would agree with the 2Kiwis that an "established model" could be a yardstick — but in a figurative (rather than literal) sense.

16d   Going the right way, /and/ studies after working (2,6)

18d   Dressed in a suit /for/ the country (7)

Tunisia^[5] is a country in North Africa; population 10,486,300 (est. 2009); official language, Arabic; capital, Tunis.

20d   Make amends /for/ former sea robber having run away (7)

On cricket scorecards [not to mention baseball scoreboards], the abbreviation R^[5] denotes run(s).

22d   Tries out // jokes when judge leaves for time (5)

J^[2] is the abbreviation for judge.

23d   Take-off /in/ second gear? (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