Thursday, January 3, 2019 — DT 28807

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 28807
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Thursday, August 2, 2018
Setter Stick Insect (?)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 28807]
Big Dave's Crossword Blog Review Written By pommers
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

I found some of wordplay in this puzzle quite tricky and did call in electronic support to complete it — although I'm not sure the troops really provided a great deal of help. Given more time, I may well have cracked the holdouts. However, the luxury of more solving time is not always an option for a blogger.

A number of comments on Big Dave's Crossword Blog suggest that the combination of clues 14a and 18a may be an indication that this puzzle is the first Daily Telegraph "back page" contribution by Stick Insect, the pseudonym of one of the setters of the Toughie (a second, more difficult, cryptic crossword puzzle that appears in The Daily Telegraph).

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.

Click here for an explanation of conventions and symbols used in explaining the parsing of clues.

The purpose of this article is to explain the conventions and symbols that I use on this blog in explaining the parsing of clues.

Legend: The following symbols are used in reviews: "*" anagram "~" sounds like "<" indicates that the preceding letters are reversed "( )" encloses contained letters "_" replaces letters that have been deleted "†" indicates that the word is present in the clue

The review of a clue takes the following general structure:

#a/d   Clue containing parsing markup (num^*)

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^* num = numeration

Explanations pertaining to the wordplay (or first definition in a double definition)

(Horizontal separator)

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Explanations pertaining to the definition (or second definition in a double definition) and solution.

Explanatory Box

An explanatory box provides additional information about the clue. In most cases this information will not necessarily help in solving the clue but provides information about the clue. In the case of the weekday syndicated Daily Telegraph puzzles, such information is often intended to help the North American solver appreciate how the clue may be perceived by a British solver. These boxes may also provide information on people, places, films, television programmes, works of art and literature, etc. mentioned in the clue. Although the titles of these boxes will usually be drawn from a standard list, I do occasionally throw in a title specifically suggested by the subject at hand. The standard titles include: Scratching the Surface - an explanation of the surface reading of the clue Delving Deeper - in-depth information pertaining to a subject mentioned in an explanation The Story Behind the Picture - for weekday puzzles, information about an illustration found on Big Dave's Crossword Blog What did he/she/they say? - for weekday puzzles, an explanation of a remark made in a review or comment on Big Dave's Crossword Blog What are they talking about? - for weekday puzzles, an explanation of a discussion on Big Dave's Crossword Blog One box that may provide information that could prove helpful in solving the clue is the following: Here and There - for weekday puzzles, discusses words whose British meaning differs from their North American meaning

Note that there are many types of cryptic crossword clue and it is not my intention to exhaustively go through all of them here. I will only deal with clue types to the extent necessary to explain the conventions and symbols used on the blog. Furthermore, be aware that, in the world of cryptic crosswords, there seems to be an exception to every rule.

With one exception that I can think of, cryptic crossword clues provide two routes to the solution. These are commonly referred to as the definition and wordplay. While these terms serve well for most clues, there are some cases where the more formal terms of primary indication and subsidiary indication may be more appropriate.

Most cryptic crossword clues consist of a definition (primary indication) and wordplay (subsidiary indication). The definition may be a "precise definition" (a definition that is either taken straight from a dictionary or at least phrased in a non-misleading fashion) or it may be a "cryptic definition" (a definition misleadingly phrased so as to misdirect the solver either with respect to the meaning of the definition as a whole or to an incorrect sense of a word used in the definition).

The only type of clue that I can think of where there are not two ways of finding the solution are those in which the entire clue is a cryptic definition.

I identify precise definitions by marking them with a solid underline in the clue and cryptic definitions by marking them with a dotted underline.

In clues in which both definition and wordplay are present, the two parts of the clue combine to provide an overall meaningful statement (the surface reading) which usually bears no relationship to the underlying cryptic reading of the clue. In some cases, an extra word or phrase will be inserted into the clue to create a meaningful link between the definition and wordplay. I define clues which contain such a link word or link phrase as having an explicit link and clues which contain no link word or link phrase as having an implicit link.

I mark the existence of an explicit link by enclosing the link word or link phrase between forward slashes (/link/) and mark the existence of an implicit link with double forward slashes (//) positioned between the definition and wordplay.

Examples

A few examples may help to illustrate these points more clearly.

The first example is a clue used by Jay in DT 28573:

• 4d   Fellow left work // a failure (4)

Here the definition is "a failure" which is marked with a solid underline to show that it is a precise definition. The wordplay parses as F (fellow; abbrev.) + L (left; abbrev.) + OP (work; abbrev. used in music) which gives us the solution F|L|OP. The double forward slashes (//) between the definition and wordplay indicate the existence of an "implicit link" between the two parts of the clue (that is, no extra words are inserted into the clue to form the link).

The second example is a clue used by Giovanni in DT 28575:

• 29a   Female going to match // travels with mother in advance (10)

Here the definition "female going to match" is cryptic (the setter is attempting to misdirect our thoughts to a sports event rather than a marriage ceremony) and thus is marked with a a dotted underline. The wordplay is {RIDES (travels) + (with) MA (mother)} contained in (in) BID (advance) giving us the solution B(RIDES|MA)ID. As in the first example, the double forward slashes indicate the presence of an implicit link.

The third example is a clue used by Rufus is DT 28583:

• 18d   Knight caught by misplaced big blow /is/ staggering (8)

Here the definition is "staggering" which is marked with a solid underline to show that it is a precise definition. The wordplay parses as N ([chess symbol for] knight) contained in (caught in) an anagram (misplaced) of BIG BLOW producing the solution WOBBLI(N)G. Finally, forward slashes mark the link word (/is/).

I also use distinctive underlining to mark &lit.^[7] and semi-&lit. clues. Note that the reviewers on Big Dave's Crossword Blog generally prefer to refer to these clue types by the less pretentious names of all-in-one or semi-all-in-one clues respectively.

In an &lit. clue^[7] (or all-in-one clue) the entire clue provides not only the definition (when read one way), but under a different interpretation also serves as the wordplay.

In future, I will mark such clues with a combined solid and dashed underline. Although this is a departure from past practice, it would seem to make more sense than using a dotted underline as I have in the past). Henceforth, the dotted underline will be reserved for cryptic definitions.

In a semi-&lit. clue (or semi-all-in-one clue), either:

• the entire clue acts as the definition while a portion of the clue provides the wordplay; or
• the entire clue acts as the wordplay while a portion of the clue provides the definition.

For these clues, I will mark the definition with a solid underline and the wordplay with a  dashed underline. This means that a portion of the clue may have a solid underline, a portion of the clue may have a dashed underline and a portion of the clue may have a combined solid and dashed underline.

One final clue type is what I characterize as a cryptic definition comprised of a precise definition combined with cryptic elaboration. For example, in DT 28560 (setter unknown) the following clue appears:

•  26d   Heroic exploit, whichever way you look at it (4)

As the entire clue is a cryptic definition, it is marked with a dotted underline. The 'precise definition' is "heroic exploit" and is indicated by a solid underline.

Given the numeration, the precise definition could give rise to at least two solutions, DEED or FEAT. However, the 'cryptic elaboration' ("whichever way you look at it") indicates that the solution is a palindrome thereby immediately eliminating one of the two obvious choices.

Note that the part of the clue that I have called 'cryptic elaboration' does not provide a second independent route to the solution (as the wordplay would do in most other types of clue). Rather it merely provides a piece of additional information (elaboration) related to the 'precise definition'.

Again, this approach is a departure from past practice, but like the other changes mentioned previously is intended to remove inconsistencies in the way that I have been applying parsing markup to clues. The markup rules that I have been using until now evolved bit-by-bit over a long period of time resulting in some degree of internal inconsistency.

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Across

1a   Is mum/'s/ seafood chowder out of the ordinary? (5,2)

"ordinary" = O [British scholastic qualification] (show more )

Historically, in the UK (with the exception of Scotland), O level^[5] (short for ordinary level^[5]) was a qualification in a specific subject formerly taken by school students aged 14-16, at a level below A (advanced) level. It was replaced in 1988 by the  GCSE^[5] (General Certificate of Secondary Education).

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5a   Mean // goblin bashed elf's head (7)

Mean^[5] is used in a dated sense denoting of low birth or social class ⇒ a muffler [scarf] like that worn by the meanest of people.

9a   Arab // megalomaniac's not all there (5)

An Omani^[5] is an inhabitant of Oman^[5,7], officially the Sultanate of Oman, an Arab country at the southeastern corner of the Arabian peninsula.

10a   Large antelope chasing bat over // plateau (9)

The eland^[5] is a large spiral-horned African antelope which lives in open woodland and grassland.

11a   Thoroughly // chaotic in Lidl, get close to apoplexy (10)

Scratching the Surface
Lidl[5] (Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG) is a German global discount supermarket chain that operates over 10,000 stores across Europe and the United States. There are Lidl stores in every member state of the European Union, except Latvia and Estonia. Lidl stores are also present in Switzerland, Serbia and the USA.

12a   Hammer-wielder // having appropriated gold from writer (4)

"gold" = AU [chemistry term] (show explanation )

The symbol for the chemical element gold is Au^[5] (from Latin aurum).

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Thor's Battle Against the Jötnar (1872)

by Mårten Eskil Winge

In Norse mythology, Thor^[5,7], the son of Odin and Freya (Frigga), is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing, healing and fertility. Thursday is named after him.

14a   Cracking any video game /in/ first excursion (6,6)

18a   Camouflaged creatures // stay in groups (5,7)

A stick insect^[5] (in North America, also known as a walking stick) is a long, slender, slow-moving insect that resembles a twig. Many species appear to lack males and the females lay fertile eggs without mating.

21a   Have confidence, // dance with energy (4)

"energy" = E [physics term] (show explanation )

In physics, E^[5] is a symbol used to represent energy in mathematical formulae ⇒ E = mc².

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22a   Information terminal in store, share // age (10)

Gen^[5] is an informal British term for information ⇒ you’ve got more gen on him than we have.

25a   Rogue ignores an // argument (9)

26a   Month back, peeled oval // fruit (5)

A guava^[5] is an edible, pale orange tropical fruit with pink juicy flesh and a strong sweet aroma.

27a   Discredit // knight following mass in church (7)

"knight" = N [chess notation] (show explanation )

A knight^[5] is a chess piece, typically with its top shaped like a horse’s head, that moves by jumping to the opposite corner of a rectangle two squares by three. Each player starts the game with two knights.

N^[5] is the abbreviation for knight used in recording moves in chess [representing the pronunciation of kn-, since the initial letter k- represents 'king'].

As an aside, it is interesting to note that the Chambers 21st Century Dictionary defines: 

• K^[2] as an abbreviation used in chess for knight. 
• K^[2] is a symbol used in chess to represent a king. 
• N^[2] is a symbol used in chess to represent a knight.

The dictionary fails to specify how one differentiates an abbreviation from a symbol.

On the other hand, both The Chambers Dictionary and the Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary list K or K.^[1,11] as an abbreviation for knight without specifying the specific context in which this abbreviation is used. However, the context may well be in an honours list rather than in a game of chess. In the UK, for instance, KBE^[5] stands for Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

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"church" = CE [Church of England] (show more )

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.

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28a   Soldiers, exhausted, // went to bed (7)

"soldiers" = RE [Royal Engineers] (show more )

The Corps of Royal Engineers^[7], usually just called the Royal Engineers (abbreviation RE), and commonly known as the Sappers^[7], is a corps of the British Army that provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces.

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Down

1d   Grey // hollow chimney muffles roaring (6)

2d   Top moral tale // potentially fruitful for one growing (6)

I initially thought the "moral tale" might be a FABLE — which didn't help my cause. It turns out we must look to the Bible rather than Aesop for guidance.

3d   Chuck rugby player's // footwear (10)

In the game of rugby union, there are 15 players on each team, comprising eight forwards and seven backs.^[7]

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A slingback^[5] is a shoe held in place by a strap around the ankle above the heel.

Post Mortem
I was looking for a less general term for a rugby player, such as prop, hooker, lock, flanker, half, centre, or wing. At one point, with the checkers that I had in place, SHINGUARDS would have fit but not only are they not footwear, it seems that there are no guards in rugby (unlike North American football). And heaven only knows how one would explain SHIN.

4d   Misled // don (3,2)

Put on^[3] (past tense put on) means to tease or mislead ⇒ You're putting me on!.

5d   Unevenness /of/ one motorway leads to blooming awful puncture (9)

Motorway^[2,5] (abbreviation M^[5]) is a British, Australian, and New Zealand term for a dual-carriageway road [divided highway] designed for fast-moving traffic, especially one with three lanes per carriageway [direction of travel] and limited access and exit points [controlled access].

Scratching the Surface
Blooming[5] is an informal British term used to express annoyance or for emphasis ⇒ (i) of all the blooming cheek!; (ii) a blooming good read.

6d   Occasion // in legend regularly overlooked (4)

Occasion^[5] is used in the sense of reason or cause ⇒ it's the first time that I've had occasion to complain.

7d   Repaired chair ably, short // of arm (8)

Brachial^[5] is an anatomical term meaning relating to the arm or to a structure resembling the arm ⇒ the brachial artery.

8d   Approved // retailers getting rid of five European diamonds (8)

"diamonds" = D [card suit] (show explanation )

Diamonds^[2] (abbreviation D^[2]) is one of the four suits of playing-cards.

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13d   Leaders in government office organised // reform (2,8)

The wordplay gives rise to straight^[5] in a sense denoting in proper order or condition ⇒ it'll take a long time to get the place straight.

The Story Behind the Video

Porridge[7] is a British situation comedy broadcast on the BBC from 1974 to 1977. Widely considered to be one of the greatest British sitcoms of all time, the show's protagonists are inmates at the fictional HMP [Her Majesty's Prison] Slade in Cumberland. The show spawned a 1979 feature film also titled Porridge (released under the title Doing Time in North America) and a 1978 television sequel, Going Straight. "Doing porridge" is British slang for serving a prison sentence, porridge once being the traditional breakfast in UK prisons.

15d   One unwelcome in bed, periodically displaying clock (9)

Dandelion clock^[5] is a British term for the downy spherical seed head of a dandelion.

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Origin:  from the child's game of blowing away the seeds to find out what time it is

Delving Deeper
There is a considerable body of folklore relating to the dandelion. Among the many beliefs, legend has it that the number of breaths it takes to blow off all the seeds of a dandelion globe that has gone to seed is the hour number.

16d   Chips are all over the place, /but/ not totally global (8)

17d   Lose // timid people outside climbing mountains (8)

The Alps^[5] are a mountain system in Europe extending in a curve from the coast of southeastern France through northwestern Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, southern Germany, and Austria into Slovenia.

19d   Welshman in Russian space station, // far above ground (6)

Dai^[7] is a Welsh masculine given name, a diminutive form of Dafydd (David).

Mir^[5] was a Soviet space station, launched in 1986 and designed to be permanently manned. It was deliberately brought down into the Pacific Ocean in 2001.

20d   Advanced // hospital staff can be found here (6)

Onward^[1,11] (adjective) meaning advanced or forward might be used to describe a military position ahead of or in front of the main body of troops.

Hospital staff might be said to be working "on (the) ward" as in "10 ways to effectively manage your time on the ward", an article from the Nursing Times website.

As an aside, a search for this term turned up the information that on the shop floor^[a] is a regionally popular UK phrase referring to the place(s) in hospital where patients are diagnosed and managed.

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^[a] Segen's Medical Dictionary

23d   Keen // flier, not student, right? (5)

"student" = L [driver under instruction] (show explanation )

The cryptic crossword convention of L meaning learner or student arises from the L-plate^[7], a square plate bearing a sans-serif letter L, for learner, which must be affixed to the front and back of a vehicle in various jurisdictions (including the UK) if its driver is a learner under instruction.

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24d   Lark // rising in the afternoon over river (4)

"over" = O [cricket term] (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.

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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)
^[14] - CollinsDictionary.com (COBUILD Advanced English Dictionary)

Signing off for today — Falcon