Monday, June 22, 2020 — DT 29212 (Published Saturday, June 20, 2020)

Puzzle at a Glance

Puzzle Number in The Daily Telegraph DT 29212
Publication Date in The Daily Telegraph Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Setter Navy (Lucy Evans)
Link to Full Review Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 29212]
Big Dave's Crossword Blog Review Written By Mr K
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
Notes
This puzzle appears on the Monday Diversions page in the Saturday, June 20, 2020 edition of the National Post.

Introduction

Today's puzzle was set by Lucy Evans who goes by the pseudonym Navy. Not only is she a rare female in the field of setting cryptic crossword puzzles, she is only eighteen years old (or, at least, she was at the time this puzzle appeared in The Daily Telegraph last November). By the way, this puzzle was published in The Daily Telegraph almost exactly one year following the appearance of her debut puzzle in November 2018. You can find out a bit more about her in the thread at Comment #1 on crypticsue's review of her inaugral puzzle at Big Dave's Crossword Blog in which she mentions that "Navy clues" is an anagram of her name. You can find out a lot more about her in an interview, Meet the Setter - Navy, published on The Guardian Crossword Blog. What is truly amazing is that this remarkable young woman received her first introduction to cryptic crosswords a mere seven months prior to having her first puzzle published in The Daily Telegraph.

Lucy Evans (Navy)

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.

Markup Conventions
"//" - marks the boundary between wordplay and definition when no link word or link phrase is present "/[link word or phrase]/" - marks the boundary between wordplay and definition when a link word or link phrase is present	"solid underline" - precise definition "dotted underline" - cryptic definition "dashed underline" - wordplay "double underline" - both wordplay and definition
Click here for further explanation and usage examples of markup conventions used on this blog.

Across

1a	Changes /made by/ artist alone to model (11)

9a	Next to // a hypotenuse? (9)

10a	Gather // graduate stops fool (5)

11a	Reveal // former stance (6)

13a	Just // hug flirt nervously (8)

14a	Some aren't allowed // property for hire (6)

Here and There

In North America, we hire people and rent accommodation, property and things while in the UK, they hire people and things and let accommodation and property. Hire[5] is a British term meaning: to obtain the temporary use of (something) for an agreed payment ⇒ we flew to San Diego, hired a car, and headed for Las Vegas to grant the temporary use of something for an agreed payment ⇒ most train stations hire out cycles Let[5] is a British* term meaning to allow someone to have the use of (a room or property) in return for regular payments ⇒ (i) she let the flat [apartment] to a tenant; (ii) they’ve let out their house. * Based on its appearance in US dictionaries[3,11], I doubt this word is quite as British as the editors of  Lexico (formerly Oxford Dictionaries Online) would have us believe. However, I would think the term is rather passé in North America. One would certainly be far more likely to say 'renting an apartment' than 'letting an apartment'.. Thus, in Britain, both hire and let are synonyms for rent (a word which the Brits would also seem to use) — although the terms are seemingly used in relation to different categories of goods and services. The former term is used in relation to renting things such as cars, boats, bicycles, movies to watch at home, etc., while the latter is used with respect to renting accommodation and property.

16a	What coin isn't // biased? (3-5)

I consider the first part of this clue to be a cryptic definition of an adjective that does not apply to a coin.

19a	Well-seasoned /and/ refined (8)

I initially thought that the first half of this double definition might be whimsical. However, I was later to discover that tasteful^[10] is a rare word for tasty.

20a	Naive, // like Simon? (6)

If you are like Simon, your surname is Callow.

Simon Callow^[7] is an English actor, writer, theatre and opera director.

22a	Trunk in which one keeps playing cards? (8)

I dithered about how to mark this clue. I did consider showing the word "trunk" as a precise definition with the rest of the clue being a cryptic definition. However, I felt that both definitions would essentially be referring to the same sense of the solution. Therefore, I concluded that the entire clue must be a cryptic definition in which a precise definition is embedded. The double underline marks the portion of the clue that not only provides the precise definition but is also part of the cryptic definition. The remainder of the clue provides cryptic elaboration relating to the precise definition.

24a	Return part of Jubilee line seems // unsteady and old, perhaps (6)

Scratching the Surface
The Jubilee line[7] is a London Underground [subway] line. (show more ) The line runs between Stratford in east London and Stanmore in the suburban north-west, via the Docklands, South Bank and West End. Opened in 1979, it is the newest line on the network, although some sections of track date back to 1932 and some stations to 1879. hide

27a	Supporter of artist's work? (5)

28a	Strangely chaotic after mum /makes/ drink (9)

Macchiato^[7] is a drink of espresso coffee with a dash of frothy steamed milk.

30a	The way in which Sherlock solves crimes? (5,6)

Sherlock Holmes^[7] is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930). Beginning in 1881 Holmes has lodgings at 221B Baker Street, London.

Down

1d	A friend has texted 'you are // not professional' (7)

In Britain, mate^[5] — in addition to meaning a person’s husband, wife, or other sexual partner — can also be an informal term for a friend or companion ⇒ my best mate Steve.

2d	Men turned up in leading // company (5)

"men " = OR [other ranks]

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

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3d	Regularly trying // machinery (3)

4d	Spare // hydrogen stored in container (4)

The symbol for the chemical element hydrogen is H^[5].

5d	Law-abiding // i.e. don't be criminal (8)

6d	Squirrel // wrapping tip of tail with ribbon (5)

7d	Players went ahead /and/ exchanged pieces (7)

In chess, a piece^[5] is a king, queen, bishop, knight, or rook, as opposed to a pawn ⇒ indicate which piece or pawn is taken.

In chess, to castle^[5] (often as a noun castling) means to make a special move (no more than once in a game by each player) in which the king is transferred from its original square two squares along the back rank towards a rook on its corner square which is then transferred to the square passed over by the king.

8d	Bloomer /is/ top of fashion in revolution (8)

12d	Quench thirst /from/ small pond (5)

15d	Most awful // kind of wine consumed by Den (8)

Asti^[7] (formerly known as Asti Spumante) is a sparkling white Italian wine (show more ).

Asti is produced throughout southeastern Piedmont but production is particularly focused around the towns of Asti and Alba. Since 1993 the wine has been classified as a Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG) and as of 2004 was Italy's largest producing appellation.

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17d	Mount // part of creature's skin? (5)

18d	UK, with Romans in disarray, // goes wild (4,4)

19d	Cryptic setters ... // they pose problems? (7)

21d	Remove // minor uncertainty in speech (4,3)

One could parse the wordplay in this clue as either:

• WEE (minor) + DOUT {sounds like (in speech) DOUBT (uncertainty)}
• sounds like (in speech) WEE DOUBT (minor uncertainty)

There is a bit of discussion on this point at Comment #3 on Big Dave's Crossword Blog. I lean toward the latter version as I figure the fewer levels of brackets in the explanation the better.

"minor " = WEE [Scottish]

Wee^[5] is a Scottish adjective meaning little ⇒ (i) when I was just a wee bairn; (ii) the lyrics are a wee bit too sweet and sentimental.

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^* The word may be of Scottish origin but, like the Scots themselves, the word has migrated around the world.

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23d	Legend // starts to chronicle elderly ladies endangering boys ... (5)

25d	... in other words, hugging Granny /is/ foolish (5)

Nan^[5] is an informal British term for one's grandmother.

26d	Damage // second vehicle (4)

29d	Winner/'s/ strike (3)

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 Advanced 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