Thursday, June 16, 2016 — DT 28041

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 28041
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Friday, February 19, 2016
Setter Giovanni (Don Manley)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 28041]
Big Dave's Crossword Blog Review Written By Deep Threat
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

My experience proved to be somewhat different than that reported by Deep Threat in his review at Big Dave's Crossword Blog. The right hand side went in quite readily — if not necessarily quickly — but the left hand side was a wholly different matter, requiring quite a bit of mental exertion.

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

6a   Mary's painting unusual // insect (7,6)

8a   Affair involving one // office task? (6)

9a   What a well-behaved inmate might get /in/ break? (4-4)

I would think that the first part of the clue is not considered to be a definition solely because the numeration required (4,4) does not match that which is given.

10a   The second person heard // an animal on the farm? (3)

11a   Snooker player /seen as/ one with magical powers? (6)

In billiards and snooker, pot^[5] means to strike (a ball) into a pocket ⇒ he failed to pot a red at close range. Thus, a potter is someone who plays billiards or snooker. Since I failed to find the term potter defined in this sense in any of my dictionaries, this usage may merely be a cryptic crossword convention — similar to the word flower (something that flows) being used to define a river.

Harry Potter^[7] is the chief protagonist in a series of fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the life of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

12a   Garden girl heading off to a big town // -- such boldness! (8)

"Come into the Garden, Maud" is a Victorian parlor song, the words of which are an abridged version of the poem "Come into the Garden, Maud" written by British poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892).

14a   State entered by English // person seeking rough justice? (7)

16a   Cooked pasties almost cold /and/ free from germs (7)

Scratching the Surface
Pasty[5] (also pastie) is a British term for a folded pastry case with a savoury filling, typically of seasoned meat and vegetables.

20a   Framework /of/ invention found in back of the box (8)

An espalier^[3] is:

1. a tree or shrub that is trained to grow in a flat plane against a wall or trellis, often in a symmetrical pattern; or
2. a trellis or other framework on which an espalier is grown.

23a   US officer // overwhelmed by men's ignorance (6)

An ensign^[5] is the lowest rank of commissioned officer in the US and some other navies, above chief warrant officer and below lieutenant.

24a   One // pain hard to get rid of (3)

"hard" = H (show explanation )

H^[5] is an abbreviation for hard, as used in describing grades of pencil lead ⇒ a 2H pencil.

hide explanation

25a   Distress // when train set is broken (8)

Straiten^[10] means to to embarrass or distress, especially financially.

26a   Dog // daughter kept in Dorset town (6)

Poole^[7] is a large coastal town and seaport in the county of Dorset, on the south coast of England. It is a tourist resort as well as a busy commercial port with cross-Channel freight and passenger ferry services. The town began to emerge as an important port in the 12th century and at its peak in the 18th century was one of the busiest ports in Britain. In the Second World War, the town was one of the main departing points for the Normandy landings.

27a   Special ceremony -- // is a step for changing time (4,2,7)

Down

1d   Famous mistress /having/ husband a poet (8)

Emma, Lady Hamilton^[7] (1765–1815) is best remembered as the mistress of British admiral Lord Nelson and as the muse of English portrait painter George Romney.

2d   Delay that is /produced by/ slips maybe (8)

3d   Intellectual type -- // for example, good school leader (7)

"good" = G (show explanation )

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

hide explanation

In Britain, head^[5] is short for headmaster^[5] (a man who is the head teacher in a school), headmistress^[5] (a woman who is the head teacher in a school), or head teacher^[5] (the teacher in charge of a school).

4d   Song /and/ dance over item interrupting TV programme? (6)

5d   Not moving? // That could be shocking (6)

6d   One gets into stir now and then (6,7)

Stir^[5] is an informal term for prison [on both sides of the Atlantic] ⇒ I’ve spent twenty-eight years in stir.

7d   Seemingly not this or that // exceptional person (9,4)

13d   Cut // in tax expected (3)

15d   Set // member up (3)

17d   Quite difficult // to sort out the spies (8)

18d   Rural // history by word of mouth (8)

19d   Relation // parading around, the first person to emerge (7)

21d   Woman with lots of money but no love // changes (6)

Pot^[10] (often pots) is an informal term for a large amount, especially of money.

"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

22d   Terrible riots with any number interrupting // pieces of music? (6)

The letter n^[10] is used (especially in mathematics) as a symbol to represent an indefinite number (of) ⇒ there are n objects in a box.

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