Friday, October 28, 2016 — DT 28167

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 28167
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Friday, July 15, 2016
Setter Giovanni (Don Manley)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 28167]
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

As Deep Threat comments in his review at Big Dave's Crossword Blog, Giovanni steps up the pace after several weeks of comparatively gentle offerings on his part. I did find myself having to resort to calling in my electronic assistants to help deal with a couple of clues in the southwest quadrant.

In Comment #20 on Big Dave's Crossword Blog, Kitty expresses "lots of love and sympathy to our French friends". The previous evening, 14 July 2016, a 19 tonne cargo truck was deliberately driven into crowds celebrating Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, resulting in the death of 86 people and injuring 434.^[7]

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   Daughter by cliff-face rocks // writing (6)

"By" as a Charade Indicator

As a charade indicator, an argument can be made that "by" could indicate either before or after. Thus "A by B" could be used to clue either "A before B" or "A after B". By[10] is a preposition that can have any of a broad range of meanings including: beside; next to; near ⇒ a tree by the house; passing the position of; past ⇒ he drove by the old cottage; or not later than; before ⇒ return the books by Tuesday. The latter two meanings should be obvious with sense (2.) denoting beyond or following and sense (3.) denoting before. It would appear that the first meaning could indicate either before or after — or, for that matter, even above or below. However, if we were to interpret "by" to imply "written beside", we might make the same argument that is used with respect to the construction "A on B" in an across clue; namely, that in order to write A on (or by) B, B must already exist (i.e., have been written first) and, given that English text is written from left to right, this would imply that "A on B" or "A by B" must consequently indicate "A after B". The conclusion would seem to be that the construction "A by B" means whatever the setter chooses it to mean and that the solver should be prepared to encounter either possibility.

5a   This person in shock, I suspect, /is/ longing to be elsewhere (8)

"this person" = ME (show explanation )

It is a common cryptic crossword convention for the creator of the puzzle to use terms such as (the or this) compiler, (the or this) setter, (this) author, (this) writer, or this person to refer to himself or herself. To solve such a clue, one must generally substitute a first person pronoun (I or me) for whichever of these terms has been used in the clue.

hide explanation

9a   Girl gone /to find/ success in a particular field (6,4)

As Deep Threat states in his review at Big Dave's Crossword Blog, "[t]he success here is to be found on the cricket field" — but (as Brian also points out in Comment #6 at Big Dave's Crossword Blog) it is success specifically for the bowler and fielding side and anything but success for the batsman (or batsmen) involved. But then, the clue does say success in ... [the] field and not at the wicket.

In cricket, a maiden over^[10] (also known as a maiden^[10]) is an over^* in which no runs are scored.

^* In cricket, an over^[5] is a division of play consisting of a sequence of six balls bowled by a bowler from one end of the pitch, after which another bowler takes over from the other end.

10a   Composer /showing/ merit, first to last (4)

Thomas Arne^[7] (1710–1778) was an English composer, best known for the patriotic song Rule, Britannia!. He also wrote a version of God Save the King, which became the British national anthem, and the song A-Hunting We Will Go. Arne was the leading British theatre composer of the 18th century, working at Drury Lane and Covent Garden.

11a   I'm so excited with a bar /offering/ wonderful food (8)

Ambrosia^[5] is something very pleasing to taste or smell ⇒ the tea was ambrosia after the slop I’d been suffering. In Greek and Roman mythology, ambrosia is the food of the gods.

12a   The distinctive style with which we introduce our newspaper (6)

Old English typeface

This puzzle originally appeared in The Daily Telegraph. The clue seemingly implies that the paper employs a Gothic typeface on its masthead. However, one can clearly see that not to be the case. The paper in fact uses a variant of the Old English typeface.

Gothic is a sans serif style of typeface, an example being the Highway Gothic typeface developed by the United States Federal Highway Administration and used for road signage in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, China and many other countries around the world.

Surprisingly, this discrepancy raised no comment on Big Dave's Crossword Blog.

By the way, I believe the masthead of the National Post uses a variant of the Miller typeface^[7] (a serif style of typeface).

13a   Set down // passage to be read out (4)

15a   Coming down /to provide/ illumination (8)

18a   Maybe ghost // getting to storm angrily around flat (8)

A revenant^[5] is a person who has returned, especially supposedly from the dead.

Had I seen the film The Revenant^[7], perhaps the solution to this clue would have been obvious to me.

---

For a long time, I thought that the solution might be TENEMENT^* but, of course, could not figure out how to parse it.

^* In Britain, the word tenement seems not to carry the negative connotation that it does in North America. In Britain, a tenement^[4] is merely a room or flat [apartment] for rent or (also called tenement building) a large building divided into separate flats [apartments], whereas in North America, a tenement^[3,11] is generally regarded as a rundown, low-rental apartment building — often overcrowded and located in a poor section of a large city — whose facilities and maintenance barely meet minimum standards.

Naturally, this played havoc with my efforts at 17d.

19a   Leave // social event that finishes early (4)

21a   Walked with head invisible, /being/ bent (6)

23a   Relinquished /and/ put into store (4,4)

25a   Woman // to have a meal sent back (4)

26a   Impede leaders /viewed as/ idiots (10)

27a   Asian person // seen wandering across enclosure (8)

Pale^[10] can denote:

1. a wooden post or strip used as an upright member in a fence;
2. an enclosing barrier, especially a fence made of pales; or
3. an area enclosed by a pale.

A Nepalese^[10] is a native or inhabitant of Nepal^[5], a mountainous landlocked country in southern Asia, in the Himalayas (and including Mount Everest); population 28,563,400 (est. 2009); official language, Nepali; capital, Kathmandu.

28a   Notice // someone using a red box? (6)

According to dictionaries, post^[3,4,11] is a (chiefly) British term meaning to send by mail. However, the phrase "post a letter" — while certainly much less common than "mail a letter" — does not sound entirely foreign to me. After all, our mail service is named Canada Post — and ironically the British postal service is known as the Royal Mail.

What did he say?
In his review on Big Dave's Crossword Blog, Deep Threat writes that the second definition could ... describe someone putting a letter into a pillar box. A pillar box[5] is a large red cylindrical public postbox [mailbox] where one would mail a letter in the UK.

Down

2d   Goldfinches // about to come to grief (5)

Just as the term for a group of geese is a gaggle, the term for a gathering of goldfinches is a charm. For the terms applicable to other species, see Common Names for Gatherings of Birds.

3d   Coming to finish, see ace run freely, /demonstrating/ staying power (9)

4d   Vessel has a name inscribed /in/ a foreign language (6)

5d   Be slightly deranged /and/ need to go up on the roof? (4,1,5,5)

Have a slate loose^[10] is an informal British and Irish expression meaning to be eccentric or crazy. A slate^[5] is a flat plate of slate used as roofing material.

6d   Loan /gives/ male good time -- nothing right in that (8)

"good" = G (show explanation )

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

hide explanation

7d   Set up // talks on reducing arms, in short (5)

START^[10] is an acronym for Strategic Arms Reduction Talks.

What did he say?

In Comment #6 on Big Dave's Crossword Blog, Brian tells us that he got really hung up on SALT in 7d, never heard it referred to as START before. The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were two rounds of bilateral conferences and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union—the Cold War superpowers—on the issue of armament control. The two rounds of talks and agreements were SALT I and SALT II. Negotiations commenced in Helsinki, Finland, in November 1969. SALT I led to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and an interim agreement between the two countries. Although SALT II resulted in an agreement in 1979, the United States Senate chose not to ratify the treaty in response to the Soviet war in Afghanistan, which took place later that year. The Soviet legislature also did not ratify it. The agreement expired on December 31, 1985 and was not renewed. The treaties led to the STARTs, or Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties, which consisted of START I (a 1991 completed agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union) and START II (a 1993 agreement between the United States and Russia, which was never ratified by the United States), both of which proposed limits on multiple-warhead capacities and other restrictions on each side's number of nuclear weapons. A successor to START I, New START, was proposed and was eventually ratified in February 2011.

8d   Person sending things? // Tricks to disregard for the most part (9)

14d   Lincoln rector originally managed church // going in the wrong direction (9)

Abraham Lincoln^[5] (1809–1865) was an American Republican statesman, 16th President of the US 1861-5.

"church" = CE (show explanation )

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.

hide explanation

Aberrance^[2] is is a departure from what is normal.

Scratching the Surface

A rector[5] is a member of the clergy, although the meaning of the term varies among religious denominations. The term denotes: in the the Church of England, an incumbent of a parish where all tithes formerly passed to the incumbent, in other Anglican Churches, a member of the clergy who has charge of a parish; in the Roman Catholic Church, a priest in charge of a church or of a religious institution.

16d   Speed isn't bad? /There's/ less than total enthusiasm (9)

17d   Worthy // archbishop joining bishop in drink (8)

William Laud^[10] (1573–1645) was an English prelate; archbishop of Canterbury (1633–45). His persecution of Puritans and his High Church policies in England and Scotland were a cause of the Civil War; he was impeached by the Long Parliament (1640) and executed.

"bishop" = B (show explanation )

B^[5] is an abbreviation for bishop that is used in recording moves in chess.

hide explanation

20d   Get better // sort of truck (4-2)

22d   Monster // lurking in filthy drains (5)

In Greek mythology, the Hydra^[5] was a many-headed snake whose heads grew again as they were cut off, eventually killed by Hercules.

24d   Ram, // the first thing you see on Welsh border (5)

Wedge^[5] is used in the sense of to force into a narrow space ⇒ she wedged her holdall [British term for 'carryall'] between two bags.

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