Puzzle at a Glance
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Puzzle number in The Daily Telegraph
DT 29302 | |
Publication date in The Daily Telegraph
Wednesday, March 4, 2020 | |
Setter
Jay (Jeremy Mutch) | |
Link to full review
Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 29302]
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Big Dave's Crossword Blog review written by
2Kiwis | |
BD rating
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| Difficulty - ★★ | Enjoyment - ★★★★ |
Falcon's experience
┌────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┬────┐
███████████████████████████████████ └────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┴────┘ | |
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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
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Notes
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This puzzle appears on the Monday Diversions page in the Saturday, October 24, 2020 edition of the National Post. | |
Introduction
The comments by the 2Kiwis in the intro to their review on Big Dave's Crossword Blog — written seven months ago as the Southern Hemisphere was transitioning into autumn — prove to be very apropos today in Canada.I did need a bit of electronic help to cross the finish line. However, that was far from my biggest obstacle today. I had just finished composing the review when "poof" virtually everything I had written vanished in a flash and I was left staring at a very early draft of my work. It was like travelling back in time and not a pleasant experience, as I was unable to recover the lost material and had to rewrite almost the entire review.
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 | |
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| Click here for further explanation and usage examples of markup conventions used on this blog. | |
Across
| 1a | Possibly a lost chance with no small // fish (10) |
The coelacanth[5] is a large bony marine fish with a three-lobed tail fin and fleshy pectoral fins. It was known only from fossils until one was found alive in 1938; since then others have been found near the Comoro Islands in the Indian Ocean and off Sulawesi, Indonesia.
| 6a | Takes off, // dismissing odd characters from, say, press (4) |
| 9a | Simple band // from London line left at the end (7) |
The Circle line[7] is a London Underground [subway] service. At one time, the line formed a closed loop around the centre of London on the north side of the River Thames. However with the opening of an extension to Hammersmith in 2009, the line assumed a spiral shape.
| 10a | Faint // moody expression about a case of shingles (4,3) |
| 12a | Dismay /of/ company people having to accept authoritarian (13) |
| 14a | Plants // whistle-blower to infiltrate works (8) |
The trefoil[5] is a small European plant of the pea family, with yellow flowers and three-lobed clover-like leaves.
| 15a | Clever // answer right for the French (6) |
The French word for 'right' is droit[8].
| 17a | Numbers must be inclusive of irate // people always on the move (6) |
| 19a | Shenanigans -- // performing after international gets into medals (6-2) |
Gong[5] is an informal British term for a medal or award ⇒
They received their gongs at a glittering awards ceremony held last night at the Hilton hotel, in Birmingham.
| 21a | Inflation should hold this up (3-3,7) |
| 24a | Name a second coin /that's/ emerging (7) |
The cent[5] is a monetary unit in various countries*,
equal to one hundredth of a dollar, euro, or other decimal currency
unit. However, in Britain — despite having adopted a decimal currency
system — one hundredth of a pound is known as a penny rather than a cent.
* Collins English Dictionary lists some 85 jurisdictions having the cent[10] as a monetary unit worth one hundredth of their respective standard units (show list ).
American Samoa, Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Australia, Austria, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium, Belize, Bermuda, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Brunei, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Dominica, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, French Guiana, Germany, Greece, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guam, Guyana, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Kosovo, Liberia, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Martinique, Mauritius, Mayotte, Micronesia, Monaco, Montenegro, Namibia, Nauru, the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Réunion, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, the Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Surinam, Swaziland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uganda, the United States, the Vatican City, the Virgin Islands, and Zimbabwe.
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* Collins English Dictionary lists some 85 jurisdictions having the cent[10] as a monetary unit worth one hundredth of their respective standard units (show list ).
American Samoa, Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Australia, Austria, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belgium, Belize, Bermuda, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Brunei, Canada, the Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Dominica, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, French Guiana, Germany, Greece, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guam, Guyana, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Kosovo, Liberia, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Martinique, Mauritius, Mayotte, Micronesia, Monaco, Montenegro, Namibia, Nauru, the Netherlands, the Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Réunion, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, the Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Surinam, Swaziland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uganda, the United States, the Vatican City, the Virgin Islands, and Zimbabwe.
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| 25a | Set of laws protecting a German // painkiller (7) |
| 26a | Costs incurred and claimed /by/ people once married? (4) |
Exes[1,2] (plural noun*) is an informal term for expenses. [From the comments on Big Dave's Crossword Blog, I see that I am far from alone in not having previously encountered this usage.]
* this usage exists only in the plural
| 27a | Get boring after picture, /seeing/ this in bed (10) |
Down
| 1d | Prepare to fire // mate (4) |
In Britain, mate[5] is a friendly form of address between men or boys ⇒
‘See you then, mate’.
In Britain, cock[5] is a friendly form of address among men ⇒
please yourself, cock.
| 2d | Overhear a chemist admitting // pain (7) |
| 3d | Old? No age limit set // presently (3,2,4,4) |
| 4d | Placed statue on empty lorry // in a perceptive way (8) |
Scratching the Surface
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| Lorry[5] is the common name in the UK for the vehicle known in North America as a truck[5]; nevertheless, the word truck is also used in the UK. |
| 5d | Exercises in pitch // tail off (5) |
| 7d | Condition // favouring six to such an extent (7) |
So[5] is an adverb denoting to such a great extent ⇒
the words tumbled out so fast that I could barely hear them.
| 8d | Excalibur perhaps was, /and is/ not going to change (3,2,5) |
I initially supposed the word "perhaps" is indicating the presence of a definition by example. However, a bit of research revealed that there are contradictory versions of the origin of the sword.
In Arthurian legend, Excalibur[10,12] is the magic sword of King Arthur. In one version of the legend, he draws it out of a stone; in another, it is given to him by the Lady of the Lake.
| 11d | Substitute goalie's first class // arrangement with bank (8,5) |
Standing order[5] is a British term denoting an instruction to a bank by an account holder to make regular fixed payments to a particular person or organization.
| 13d | Rock group // gets none and he must be upset! (10) |
Stonehenge[5] is a megalithic monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England. Completed in several constructional phases from c.2950 BC, it is composed of a circle of sarsen stones surrounded by a bank and ditch and enclosing a circle of smaller bluestones. Within this inner circle is a horseshoe arrangement of five trilithons with the axis aligned on the midsummer sunrise, an orientation that was probably for ritual purposes.
| 16d | Takes in top // paper (8) |
| 18d | Artist // diplomat is serious about? (7) |
Henri Matisse[5] (1869–1954) was a French painter and sculptor. His use of non-naturalistic colour led him to be regarded as a leader of the Fauvists. His later painting and sculpture displays a trend towards formal simplification and abstraction, and includes large figure compositions and abstracts made from cut-out coloured paper.
| 20d | Confess -- keeping family, /and/ going down (7) |
| 22d | One may be dropped in race /for/ staff (5) |
| 23d | Understanding about European lament (4) |
Ken[5] (noun) denotes one's range of knowledge or understanding ⇒
politics are beyond my ken.
"European " = E [as in E number]
E[1,2] is the abbreviation for European (as in E number*).
* An E number[1,4,10,14] (or E-number[2,5]) is any of various identification codes required by EU law, consisting of the letter E (for European) followed by a number, that are used to denote food additives such as colourings and preservatives (but excluding flavourings) that have been approved by the European Union.
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E[1,2] is the abbreviation for European (as in E number*).
* An E number[1,4,10,14] (or E-number[2,5]) is any of various identification codes required by EU law, consisting of the letter E (for European) followed by a number, that are used to denote food additives such as colourings and preservatives (but excluding flavourings) that have been approved by the European Union.
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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] - TheFreeDictionarycom (Collins English Dictionary)
[5] - Lexico (formerly Oxford Dictionaries Online) (Oxford Dictionary of English)
[6] - Lexico (formerly Oxford Dictionaries Online) (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
Sorry for your computer woes. Thanks for persevering. Didn't appreciate that obscure plant.
ReplyDeleteI presume the plant to which you refer is the trefoil and not the snapdragon. I am sure you have seen it numerous times without realizing it -- it is the symbol of the Girl Guides.
ReplyDelete