Monday, February 29, 2016 — DT 27925

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 27925
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Setter Unknown
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 27925]
Big Dave's Crossword Blog Review Written By Gazza
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
Notes
The National Post has skipped DT 27924 which was published in The Daily Telegraph on Monday, October 5, 2015.

Introduction

I hope you didn't work up a sweat over this puzzle.

Over the weekend, Big Dave's Crossword Blog moved to a new hosting service in an effort to resolve the performance problems that have been plaguing his site for some time. However, as of this morning, his site seems to be down entirely. Hopefully, it will be back on line later 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   Former lover was modelling, // laid bare (7)

5a   Embarrassed // when actor initially exploits director (7)

Not surprisingly, Gazza is right and I was wrong. I had presumed that we must interpret the word "initially" to be indicating the initial letters of both "E(xploits)" and "D(irector)". However, The Chambers Dictionary defines D^[1] as the abbreviation for Director.

9a   Re stoop -- it could make you // most short (7)

The phrase "could make you" often appears as a link phrase as in a clue constructed along the lines of:

• {wordplay} {could make you [link phrase]} {definition}

However, here we find this phrase serving as part of what amounts to an implicit anagram indicator:

• {anagram fodder} {it ["it" referring to the anagram fodder] could make you [anagram indicator]} {definition}

I call it an implicit anagram indicator because it does not explicitly tell us that an anagram is the operation involved. It merely tells us that some unspecified operation must be performed on the fodder to produce the definition.

10a   Turn to bat -- // proceeds to lose wicket (7)

On cricket scorecards, W^[5] is used as an abbreviation for wicket(s). In cricket, to take a wicket^[5] (said of a bowler or a fielding side) means to dismiss a batsman.

In cricket, innings^[5] (plural same or informally inningses) denotes:

1. each of two or four divisions of a game during which one side has a turn at batting ⇒ the highlight of the Surrey innings; or
2. a player’s turn at batting ⇒ he had played his greatest innings; or
3. the score achieved during a player’s turn at batting ⇒ a solid innings of 78 by Marsh.

In the first sense, the term innings (spelled with an 's') would correspond somewhat to an inning (spelled without an 's') in baseball while the second sense would be roughly equivalent to an at bat in baseball.

11a   Man in services seen with empty lorry // on a frequent basis (9)

Scratching the Surface
Lorry[5] is the common name in the UK for the vehicle known in North America as a truck[5] [despite the fact that Oxford Dictionaries defines a lorry as being a truck and a truck as being a lorry].

12a   Be in crate // that's tossed north of the border? (5)

Of course, the border is the one between England and Scotland.

A caber^[5] is a roughly trimmed tree trunk used in the Scottish Highland sport of tossing the caber. This involves holding the caber upright and running forward to toss it so that it lands on the opposite end.

13a   Grew small // flowers (5)

15a   One thousand newspapers: editor/'s/ overwhelmed (9)

17a   Lingerie -- // two articles from abroad are ordered by women (9)

In French, the masculine singular form of the indefinite article is un^[8] while, in German, der^[8] is one of the several forms that the definite article may assume.

19a   Rags /made from/ loose dress, first to last (5)

22a   Son visits gallery, /showing/ discernment (5)

"gallery" = TATE (show explanation )

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. [I would surmise that by that time the original collection could no longer be considered "modern".]

hide explanation

23a   In stress, I'd start to show //  blunders (9)

25a   Judge /from/ one American state impounding 1000 dollars (7)

26a   Not informed // United Nations has a battle with Spain (7)

"Spain" = E (show explanation ) 

The International Vehicle Registration (IVR) code for Spain is E^[5] [from Spanish España].

hide explanation

27a   Fancied // lodger? Sounds like it (7)

28a   Nice text -- unfortunately line finally goes // dead (7)

Down

1d   Rome ripe to be changed? One's got rid of // Caesar, perhaps (7)

Caesar^[5] is a title of Roman emperors, especially those from Augustus to Hadrian. The title is probably most commonly associated with the Roman general and statesman Gaius Julius Caesar^[5] (100–44 BC).

2d   Sow plus hog -- // one finds them on a farm (7)

As an anagram indicator, sow^[5] is used in the sense of scatter (seeds).

3d   That woman will // peel outside (5)

4d   Find out, // from Parisian, word in English (9)

"from Parisian" = DE (show explanation )

In French, de^[8] is a preposition meaning 'of'' or 'from'.

hide explanation

5d   Friendship /from/ a year in American university? Just the opposite (5)

"American university" = MIT (show explanation )

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology^[5] (abbreviation MIT) is a US institute of higher education, famous for scientific and technical research, founded in 1861 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

hide explanation

6d   Present: finest // lotion (4,5)

7d   Coach /finds/ skirt almost ruined (7)

8d   Wanted // something done about gentleman (7)

14d   Where one finds doctors // rise up and rise anew (9)

Surgery^[5] is a British term for a place where a doctor, dentist, or other medical practitioner treats or advises patients [equivalent term in North America: doctor's office].

16d   Drop // safety equipment (9)

17d   Aunty in gilet, pockets // loosening (7)

A gilet^[5] is a light sleeveless padded jacket.

18d   Vicious punk rocker returned to get rest /for/ illness (7)

Sid Vicious^[7] (1957–1979), born John Simon Ritchie, later named John Beverley, was an English bass guitarist, drummer and vocalist, most famous as a member of the influential punk rock band the Sex Pistols, and notorious for his arrest for the alleged murder of his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen [Vicious died of a (possibly deliberate) heroin overdose while out on bail awaiting trial].

20d   Continued briefly with article in // house (7)

In the cryptic analysis, "house" becomes a verb.

21d   Mistrust // religious school detaining us with pressure (7)

"pressure" = P (show explanation )

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

hide explanation

23d   Winning /as/ a captain? (5)

24d   Sketch // daughter on flat wooden boat (5)

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