Wednesday, November 25, 2015 — DT 27830

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27830
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Setter Jay (Jeremy Mutch)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27830]
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

I thought that Jay served up a fairly gentle undertaking today.

Good news. Big Dave's site appears to be back on line today.

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   Hurried across central London, /getting/ pinched (6)

The West End of London^[7] (more commonly referred to as simply the West End) is an area of Central London containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings and entertainment venues (including the commercial West End theatres). The West End is largely contained within the City of Westminster (one of the 32 London boroughs).

The boundaries of the West End coincide closely with those of the W1 postcode area^[7] [postcode being the British counterpart of the Canadian postal code or American zip code].

5a   Enter, then leave females // getting high (5,3)

"Getting high" in the sense of becoming rancid.

9a   How a boxer might win agreement to divorce? (5,8)

A split decision^[5] is a decision based on a majority verdict rather than on a unanimous one, especially as to the winner on points of a boxing match ⇒ his title reign ended on a split decision to Daniel Jimenez.

10a   Daughter with independent attitude /and/ degree of separation (8)

"independent" = I (show explanation )

I^[1] is the abbreviation for independent, likely in the context of a politician with no party affiliation.

hide explanation

11a   Eccentric // maids oddly in good shape (6)

12a   Tate's first Young British Artist /showing/ desire (6)

The Tate Gallery^[5] (commonly known simply as the Tate) is a national museum of art in London, England founded in 1897 by the sugar manufacturer Sir Henry Tate (1819–1899) to house his collection of modern British paintings, as a nucleus for a permanent national collection of modern art. It was renamed Tate Britain in 2000, when the new Tate Modern gallery opened. [It would seem that by that time the original collection could no longer be considered "modern".]

Damien Hirst^[5] is  English painter and sculptor. He is chiefly known for using the bodies of dead animals in his work; perhaps his most famous piece is The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991), which consists of a shark in a tank of preserving fluid.

He is the most prominent member of the group known as the Young British Artists (or YBAs), who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is internationally renowned, and is reportedly the United Kingdom's richest living artist, with his wealth valued at £215m in the 2010 Sunday Times Rich List.^[7]

14a   Lures // offenders, welcoming pressure (8)

"pressure" = P (show explanation )

In physics, the symbol p^[5] is used to represent pressure.

hide explanation

As a fishing term, spinner^[5] (also spinnerbait) means:

1. a lure designed to revolve when pulled through the water; or
2. a type of fishing fly, used chiefly for trout.

16a   Crosses // sailors, full of anger (8)

A saltire^[5] is a diagonal cross as a heraldic ordinary [such as the Saint Andrew's cross on the flag of Scotland].

19a   Reticent about strange // woollen material (6)

Shoddy^[5] is an inferior quality yarn or fabric made from the shredded fibre of waste woollen cloth or clippings : the production of shoddy and mattress stuffing.

21a   Young reporters covering article /for/ islanders (6)

23a   Take steps, concerned with // such a victory (8)

Over^[10] is used in the sense of on the subject of or about ⇒ an argument over nothing.

The term walkover^[3] may well originate in horse racing where it refers to a race with only one horse entered, won by the mere formality of walking the length of the track.

25a   Enjoyable city work /is/ a deception (5,8)

Despite not being capitalized, "city" may possibly be a reference to the City of London — London's financial district.

The City of London^[7] is a city and ceremonial county within London. It constituted most of London from its settlement by the Romans in the 1st century AD to the Middle Ages, but the conurbation has since grown far beyond the City's borders. The City is now only a tiny part of the metropolis of London, though it remains a notable part of central London. It is one of two districts of London to hold city status, the other being the adjacent City of Westminster.

It is widely referred to simply as the City (often written as just "City" and differentiated from the phrase "the city of London" by capitalising "City") and is also colloquially known as the Square Mile, as it is 1.12 sq mi (2.90 km²), in area. Both of these terms are also often used as metonyms for the United Kingdom's trading and financial services industries, which continue a notable history of being largely based in the City. This is analogous to the use of the terms Wall Street and Bay Street to refer to the financial institutions located in New York and Toronto respectively.

26a   Bursary about to expire /for/ degree in banking (8)

27a   Acquisitive // editor in dull surroundings (6)

Down

2d   Irritable // desire to eat snake (7)

Waspish^[5] is an adjective denoting readily expressing anger or irritation ⇒ he had a waspish tongue.

3d   Flier/'s/ hypocritically virtuous crowd (5)

Pi^[5] is an informal British short form for pious^[5] — used here in the sense of making or constituting a hypocritical display of virtue ⇒ his pious platitudes.

4d   One sets off // to trade on explosive (9)

5d   Blokes /making/ good for France in cold stores? (7)

"good" = G (show explanation )

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

hide explanation

"France" = FR (show explanation )

Fr.^[10] is the abbreviation for France.

hide explanation

Bloke^[5] is an informal British term for a man ⇒ he’s a nice bloke.

6d   Expression /of/ one gloomy about love? (5)

"love" = O (show explanation )

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.

Although folk etymology has connected the word with French l'oeuf 'egg', from the resemblance in shape between an egg and a zero, the term apparently comes from the phrase play for love (i.e. the love of the game, not for money).

hide explanation

7d   Lass doing badly /gets/ instruction for playing (9)

In music, glissando^[5] denotes a continuous slide upwards or downwards between two notes.

8d   More elaborate // lover (7)

13d   Coach in rush // taught new skills (9)

15d   Offensive // sign -- until redesigned (9)

17d   Answer question on fire raging /in/ water- bearing rock! (7)

18d   What's left of deal after cut? (7)

In Britain, deal^[5] means:

1. fir or pine wood as a building material; or
2. a plank made of fir or pine wood [what we in North America would commonly refer to as lumber]. 

Apparently, this meaning of deal^[3,11] also exists (or once existed) in North America, but I would think that it is very rarely used now — especially by the general public.

By the way, in Britain, lumber^[5] has a totally different meaning than it does in North America, being articles of furniture or other household items that are no longer useful and inconveniently take up storage space.

20d   Doctor sees chaotic day // with bandages (7)

22d   Video call /from/ broadcaster on Pope that requires no work (5)

Sky plc^[7] [private limited company] is a British-based pan-European satellite broadcasting, on-demand Internet streaming media, broadband and telephone services company headquartered in London, with operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Austria and Italy. Sky is Europe's biggest and leading media company and the largest pay-TV broadcaster in Europe, with over 20 million subscribers.

"work" = OP (show explanation )

In music, an opus^[5] (plural opuses or opera) is a separate composition or set of compositions.

The abbreviation Op.^[5] (also op.), denoting opus, is used before a number given to each work of a particular composer, usually indicating the order of publication. The plural form of Op. is Opp..

Opus^[5] can also be used in a more general sense to mean an artistic work, especially one on a large scale ⇒ he was writing an opus on Mexico.

hide explanation

Skype^[10] means to communicate using Skype®, a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls over the internet.

24d   Plant /requiring/ a bovine point of view? (2-3)

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