Friday, November 24, 2017 — DT 28512

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 28512
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Tuesday, August 22, 2017
Setter Unknown
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 28512]
Big Dave's Crossword Blog Review Written By Mr Kitty
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's puzzle was of moderate difficulty. Blogging was a different matter as I struggled all day with computer issues.

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   Give // Commanding Officer salute with unknown number involved (10)

Indefinite and Unknown

In mathematics (algebra, in particular), an unknown[10] is a variable, or the quantity it represents, the value of which is to be discovered by solving an equation ⇒ 3y = 4x + 5 is an equation in two unknowns. [Unknowns are customarily represented symbolically by the letters x, y and z.] On the other hand, the letter n[10] is used as a symbol to represent an indefinite number (of) ⇒ there are n objects in a box. However, it is fairly common for setters to clue the letter N as "unknown number", a practice that invariably raises howls of protest on Big Dave's Crossword Blog.

6a   Troublesome situation /created by/ return of moderate Conservatives (4)

Wet^[5] (adjective) is an informal British term meaning showing a lack of forcefulness or strength of character; in other words, feeble ⇒ they thought the cadets were a bit wet.

Wet^[5] (noun)  is an informal British term for a person lacking forcefulness or strength of character ⇒ there are sorts who look like gangsters and sorts who look like wets.

In British political circles, the name wet^[5] is applied to a Conservative with liberal tendencies ⇒ the wets favoured a change in economic policy. It was a term frequently used by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for those to the left of her in the British Conservative Party [which must have been just about everyone]. In his review on Big Dave's site, Mr Kitty claims that Mrs. Thatcher coined the term. I can't confirm that to be true - but if she didn't coin the term she certainly made it her own.

9a   Extremely glad to eat our // fruit (5)

10a   I dash back with money to purchase old // habit (9)

Tin^[5] is a dated informal British term for money ⇒ Kim’s only in it for the tin.

12a   Most difficult // dart he's thrown (7)

13a   Jobs /for/ Poles (5)

15a   Trouble with method that should follow right // lines (7)

17a   Bird // table with nothing in it (7)

19a   Resent a drunk /getting/ sober (7)

21a   Perhaps Carmen then regularly avoided // work (7)

Carmen^[7] is an opera by French composer Georges Bizet. It was first performed in Paris in 1875, where its breaking of conventions shocked and scandalized its first audiences. Bizet died suddenly after the 33rd performance, unaware that the work would achieve international acclaim within the following ten years. Carmen has since become one of the most popular and frequently performed operas in the classical canon.

22a   Coarse // grass restricts runs (5)

"runs" = R (show explanation )

On cricket scorecards [not to mention baseball scoreboards], the abbreviation R^[5] denotes run(s).

In cricket, a run^[5] is a unit of scoring achieved by hitting the ball so that both batsmen are able to run between the wickets, or awarded in some other circumstances.

hide explanation

24a   You're looking for these // responses (7)

27a   For instance, boxers // inferior to women are unusual (9)

As a charade indicator, the word "to" is used in the sense of "pressed against"—as in expressions such as "shoulder to the wheel" or "nose to the grindstone".

28a   Hitting lob, Edberg nets // ball (5)

Scratching the Surface
Stefan Edberg[7] is a Swedish former world no. 1 professional tennis player (in both singles and doubles).

29a   Bring in // vase, by the sound of it (4)

30a   Mark Twain, say, used this? (10)

Mark^[5] (followed by a numeral) denotes a particular model or type of a vehicle or machine ⇒ a Mark 10 Jaguar.

---

Mark Twain^[5] (1835–1910) was an American novelist and humorist; pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. His best-known novels, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), give a vivid evocation of Mississippi frontier life.

Down

1d   Lock up // composer (4)

John Cage^[7] (1912–1992) was an American composer, music theorist, writer, and artist. Cage is perhaps best known for his 1952 composition 4′33″, which is performed in the absence of deliberate sound; musicians who present the work do nothing aside from their presence for the duration specified by the title. The content of the composition is not "four minutes and 33 seconds of silence," as is sometimes assumed, but rather the sounds of the environment heard by the audience during performance.

2d   A Turing -- he cracked /what could be/ more difficult (9)

Scratching the Surface

Alan Turing[7] (1912–1954) was an English mathematician who was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general purpose computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. During the Second World War, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre. Turing played a pivotal role in cracking intercepted coded messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis in many crucial engagements, including the Battle of the Atlantic, and in so doing helped win the war. It has been estimated that this work shortened the war in Europe by more than two years and saved over fourteen million lives. Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts, then illegal in the UK, accepting chemical castration as an alternative to prison. Turing died in 1954, 16 days before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. Although officially ruled a suicide, it has been noted that the circumstances of his death are also consistent with accidental poisoning. In 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for "the appalling way he was treated." Queen Elizabeth II granted him a posthumous pardon in 2013.

3d   Passenger, // Irish from the South, turned crimson (5)

4d   Treat criminal in neighbouring // cell (7)

5d   18 for field trip? (7)

The numeral "18" is a cross reference indicator directing the solver to insert the solution to clue 18d in its place to complete the clue. The directional indicator is customarily omitted in situations such as this where only a single clue starts in the light^* that is being referenced.

---

^* light-coloured cell in the grid

7d   Gets // little bits of wood (5)

8d   Engineer screwed in new // part of car (10)

Windscreen^[5] is the British term for a windshield.

11d   Progress /seen in/ this writer's show (7)

As pointed out by a visitor to Big Dave's Crossword Blog (Comment #18), there was a typo in this clue when it appeared in the UK and that error resurfaces in today's edition of the National Post with "progress" being misspelled as "progess". This error appears to have been present in all the various incarnations of the puzzle (see The Life Cycle of a Cryptic Crossword Puzzle ). I failed to notice the error as did many of those posting comments on Big Dave's blog.

The Life Cycle of a Cryptic Crossword Puzzle

The reason why errors that get corrected in the UK still show up months later in the puzzle in Canada can be understood if one looks at what I believe to be the life cycle of a puzzle:

1. The setter creates the puzzle and submits it to the puzzle editor.
2. The puzzle editor and setter refine the puzzle.
3. The puzzle is distributed in syndication. (Some papers print the puzzle on or close to the date it appears in the UK. Other papers, such as the National Post, print the puzzle weeks or months later.)
4. The puzzle editor may make changes to the puzzle (with or without consulting the setter) after it has been distributed in syndication. These (and subsequent) changes do not appear in the syndicated puzzle (which has already been distributed).
5. The puzzle is prepared for print publication. Errors may be introduced during the production process. These errors sometimes also carry forward to the online versions of the puzzle.
6. The puzzle is prepared for online publication. Additional errors may be introduced during this production process but affect only the online versions of the puzzle. Complicating matters even further, there are apparently multiple online platforms on which the puzzle appears —  namely, the online edition of The Daily Telegraph and the Telegraph Puzzles website as well as Apple and Android apps. There will sometimes be an error on one of these online platforms that is not present on the others.
7. The various online versions of the puzzle are posted.
8. Errors in the online versions of the puzzle (regardless of at what stage they were introduced) are often corrected at some point during the day of publication. Of course, errors in the print edition cannot be corrected.

hide explanation

"this writer's" = IM (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.

Today, the setter has made the scenario slightly more complicated by combining "this writer" with the verb "to be" producing "this writer's" (a contraction of "this writer is") which must be replaced by "I'm" (a contraction of "I am").

hide explanation

---

In the definition, progress is used as a verb.

14d   Coveting top of hill by river /as/ suitable place for plants (10)

The River Ouse^[5] (rhymes with booze rather than mouse) is a river of northeastern England, formed at the confluence of the Ure and Swale in North Yorkshire and flowing 92 km (57 miles) south-eastwards through York to the Humber estuary. There are also severalother rivers in England having the same or similar name.

• a river of southeastern England, which rises in the Weald of West Sussex and flows 48 km (30 miles) south-eastwards to the English Channel
• (also Great Ouse) a river of eastern England, which rises in Northamptonshire and flows 257 km (160 miles) eastwards then northwards through East Anglia to the Wash near King’s Lynn
• (also Little Ouse) a river of East Anglia, which forms a tributary of the Great Ouse

hide explanation

16d   If // that man enters outskirts of Wainfleet, that woman's following (7)

Scratching the Surface
Wainfleet All Saints[7] is an ancient port and market town in Lincolnshire, England. It is situated 5 miles (8 km) south-west from Skegness and 14 miles (23 km) north-east from Boston. The village of Wainfleet St Mary is directly to the south.

18d   Bear // managed small drink after end of jaunt (9)

Port^[5] (also port wine) is a strong, sweet dark red (occasionally brown or white) fortified wine, originally from Portugal, typically drunk as a dessert wine. The name is a shortened form of Oporto, a major port from which the wine is shipped.

20d   Attempt to catch ancient // play (7)

21d   Watch // over bishop and perform duties (7)

"over" = O (show explanation )

On cricket scorecards, the abbreviation O^[5] denotes over(s), an over^[5] being 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.

hide explanation

"bishop" = B (show explanation )

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

hide explanation

23d   It detects signals from north and south (5)

25d   Keen, // for example, to roll up and be entertained by organ (5)

26d   Expensive // honey (4 )

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