Tuesday, October 10, 2017 — DT 28479

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 28479
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Friday, July 14, 2017
Setter Giovanni (Don Manley)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 28479]
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

Today finds Giovanni in a very gentle mood. However, I did stumble over one clue.

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 semi-all-in-one (semi-&lit.) clues. All-in-one (&lit.) clues and cryptic definitions are marked with a dotted underline. Explicit link words and phrases are enclosed in forward slashes (/link/) and implicit links are shown as double forward slashes (//).

Across

1a   Second drink that's strong always /produces/ a beastly complaint (5,5)

"strong" = F (show explanation )

Forte^[5] (abbreviation f^[5]) is a musical direction meaning (as an adjective) loud or (as an adverb) loudly.

hide explanation

Swine fever^[5] is an intestinal viral disease of pigs.

9a   Spots // wood east of river (4)

10a   Mistrial -- it could lead to // one being aggressive (10)

11a   Plant // left behind rag (6)

Teasel^[5] (also teazle or teazel) is a tall prickly Eurasian plant with spiny purple flower heads.

12a   Love /having/ argument about e.g. Titanic (7)

15a   Supports // units for brief periods (7)

16a   Vehicle parked outside gym /used for/ game (5)

"gym [class]" = PE (show explanation )

PE^[5] is the abbreviation for physical education [or Phys Ed, as it was known in my school days]. 

hide explanation

Game^[10] is used in the sense of an activity undertaken in a spirit of levity; in other words a joke ⇒ marriage is just a game to him.

17a   Bills /for/ pills (4)

18a   Stage /offering/ a comeback for favourites (4)

19a   Publicity officer with script /for/ concerts (5)

PRO^[5] is an abbreviation for public relations officer.

Here and There

The word prom[5] (or Prom) is short for promenade concert[5], a British term for a concert of classical music at which a part of the audience stands in an area without seating, for which tickets are sold at a reduced price. The most famous series of such concerts is the annual BBC Promenade Concerts (known as the Proms), instituted by Sir Henry Wood in 1895. In his review, Deep Threat tells us that the 2017 series was to begin the very day that this puzzle appeared in the UK. Prom[5], in the sense of a formal dance, is chiefly a North American expression.

21a   Reinstate // pause from work before men strike finally (7)

"men" = OR (show explanation )

In the British armed forces, the term other ranks^[5] (abbreviation OR^[5]) refers to all those who are not commissioned officers.

hide explanation

22a   Day came for reforming // educational institution (7)

24a   Managed thus to get millions /as/ price to be paid (6)

27a   Trouble-maker joins fliers, with time /to create/ damage (10)

28a   Salvationists, quiet // band (4)

The Salvation Army^[5] (abbreviation SA) is a worldwide Christian evangelical organization on quasi-military lines. Established in 1865 by William Booth, an English Methodist revivalist preacher, it is noted for its work with the poor and for its brass bands.

29a   Look at // nicer suits in a new style (10)

Down

2d   Fancy // woman's first to get that fellow (4)

3d   More than one unwanted sound // is conveyed in refusals (6)

As a solution, I had NEIGHS based on the fact that it sounds like (is conveyed in) NAYS (refusals).

Admittedly, I couldn't explain why a neigh might be considered an unwanted sound. However, all the checking letters fit. I had made a mental note to take a second look — but, as I have experienced in the past, my mental notes are often not worth the paper on which they are written.

4d   Distraught // female rushed with twitchy motion (7)

5d   Conceited /and/ terrible ruler, one being put down (4)

In his hurry, Deep Threat moved the I one space too few — it must move down two places.

Ivan^[5] is the name of six rulers of Russia, the most famous being Ivan IV (1530–1584), grand duke of Muscovy 1533–47 and first tsar of Russia 1547–84; known as Ivan the Terrible. He captured Kazan, Astrakhan, and Siberia, but the Tartar siege of Moscow and the Polish victory in the Livonian War (1558–82) left Russia weak and divided. In 1581 he killed his eldest son Ivan in a fit of rage, the succession passing to his mentally disturbed second son Fyodor.

6d   Bad person starts row, /becoming/ more bad-tempered (7)

Ratty^[5] is an informal British term meaning bad-tempered and irritable ⇒ I was a bit ratty with the children.

7d   I'm on estate, newly built // accommodation (10)

Maisonette^[3,4,11] is a chiefly British term for self-contained living accommodation often occupying two floors of a larger house and having its own outside entrance.

8d   System of belief // nastily put as 'popish' and 'holy' (10)

12d   In the borders of Wales caterers supply // salad ingredient (10)

As an anagram indicator, supply is used as an adverb meaning 'in a supple^[5] manner'.

13d   Unstable sensor gets broken inside -- if lacking this? (10)

As I have said before, I do not accept a pronoun in its own right as a definition. To my way of thinking the entire clue provides the definition with wordplay (marked with a dashed underline) embedded within it.

14d   Minister /has/ facility for writing rule devoid of content (5)

15d   Males battling /in/ this US location? (5)

Selma^[7] is a city in and the county seat of Dallas County, Alabama. The city is best known for the 1960s Selma Voting Rights Movement and the Selma to Montgomery marches [Montgomery being the Alabama state capital], beginning with "Bloody Sunday" in March 1965 and ending with 25,000 people entering Montgomery at the end of the last march to press for voting rights. This activism generated national attention to social justice and that summer, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed by Congress to authorize federal oversight and enforcement of constitutional rights of all citizens.

19d   Assumption /made by/ journalists about major highway (7)

The M1^[7] is a north–south motorway [controlled access, multi-lane divided highway] in England connecting London to Leeds.

Premiss^[1,10] is a variant British form of premise. I had to look long and hard to find it as this spelling does not appear in most of my British dictionaries.

20d   Name of German /establishing/ school and university outside Germany (7)

"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

"Germany" = D (show explanation )

The International Vehicle Registration (IVR) code for Germany is D^[5] [from German Deutschland].

hide explanation

Schmidt^[7] is a common German occupational surname derived from the German word "Schmied" meaning "blacksmith" and/or "metalworker". This surname is the German equivalent of "Smith" in the English-speaking world.

As you can imagine, the number of people having this surname is huge. One notable example is Helmut Schmidt^[7] (1918–2015), a German politician and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), who served as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) from 1974 to 1982.

23d   Funny old fellows /featured in/ ancient monument (6)

A dolmen^[5] is a megalithic tomb with a large flat stone laid on upright ones, found chiefly in Britain and France.

25d   His purring brings // such encouragement (4)

26d   More than one little worker // raves, losing head (4)

"worker" = ANT (show explanation )

The word "worker" and the phrase "social worker" are commonly used in cryptic crossword puzzles to clue ANT or BEE.

A worker^[5] is a neuter or undeveloped female bee, wasp, ant, or other social insect, large numbers of which do the basic work of the colony.

In crossword puzzles, "worker" will most frequently be used to clue ANT and occasionally BEE but I have yet to see it used to clue WASP. Of course, "worker" is sometimes also used to clue HAND or MAN.

hide explanation

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)
^[12] - CollinsDictionary.com (Webster’s New World College Dictionary)
^[13] - MacmillanDictionary.com (Macmillan Dictionary)

Signing off for today — Falcon