Puzzle at a Glance
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Puzzle number in The Daily Telegraph
DT 29370 | |
Publication date in The Daily Telegraph
Friday, May 22, 2020 | |
Setter
Zandio | |
Link to full review
Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 29370]
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Big Dave's Crossword Blog review written by
Deep Threat | |
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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Introduction
Zandio's puzzles always seem to have a different feel about them.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 | Go off to get married /in/ ceremony (4) |
| 3a | Blunder, tucking into regional cheese after the Spanish // fruity wine? (10) |
Derby[5] is a hard cheese made from skimmed milk, chiefly in Derbyshire* ⇒
In the seventeenth century, the custom of adding sage (a herb valued at the time for its health-giving properties) to Derby cheese was begun.
"the Spanish " = EL [Spanish definite article]
| 9a | Some food's outside (4) |
A cryptic definition of what is found on the surface of foods such as cheese, bacon and certain fruit.
| 10a | Make too few runs, maybe /creating/ stress (10) |
A double definition with the first one being rather whimsical.
| 11a | Rotten decorator for cakes /in/ general? (7) |
| 13a | Fought // the French -- dust's settling around (7) |
"the French " = LE [French definite article]
| 14a | Fall for something old wives claim, talking // butterfly (11) |
The swallowtail[5] (also swallowtail butterfly) is a large brightly coloured butterfly with projections suggestive of a swallow's tail on the hindwings.
| 18a | Not admitted into church, /as/ lacking foundation (11) |
In the Christian Church*, confirmation[5] is the rite at which a baptized person, especially one baptized as an infant, affirms Christian belief and is admitted as a full member of the Church.
* at least, in some denominations of the Christian Church
| 21a | Design of paper // or magazine cutting I twice rejected (7) |
Origami[5] is the Japanese art of folding paper into decorative shapes and figures.
| 22a | What health inspector seeks /in/ hospital, eyeing rubbish (7) |
| 23a | Italian artist/'s/ belt -- coil it for sculpting (10) |
Sandro Botticelli[5] (1445–1510) was an Italian painter; born Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi. He worked in Renaissance Florence under the patronage of the Medicis. Botticelli is best known for his mythological works such as Primavera (circa 1478) and The Birth of Venus (circa 1480).
Schoolday Memories
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I
am very familiar with the latter work mentioned above as it appeared in my high school
Latin textbook. In later editions of the textbook, this illustration was replaced by one
far less appealing to teenage boys. When textbooks were distributed at
the start of the school year, students usually tried to grab a new one.
But that was not the case in Latin class. There we scrambled to secure a
copy of the older edition.
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| 24a | Something for the home /that's/ welcome if retiring (2-2) |
| 25a | With Frenchman backing US soldier, chorus /is/ electrifying (10) |
René — if not the most popular name for a Frenchman in Crosswordland — certainly ranks among the leading contenders.
What did he say?
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In his review on Big Dave's Crossword Blog, Deep Threat tells us that we needa French name (Descartes, or the café proprietor in Allo Allo, for example).
René Descartes (1596–1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and man of science. (show more )
Aiming to reach totally secure foundations for knowledge, Descartes concluded that everything was open to doubt except his own conscious experience, and his existence as a necessary condition of this: ‘Cogito, ergo sum’ (I think, therefore I am). From this certainty he developed a dualistic theory regarding mind and matter as separate though interacting. In mathematics Descartes developed the use of coordinates to locate a point in two or three dimensions. hide
'Allo 'Allo![7] is a BBC television sitcom broadcast from 1982 to 1992. Set in a small town in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, 'Allo 'Allo! tells the story of café owner René Artois. (show more )
Réné, whilst trying to remain impartial, has been dragged into the war by both sides. The Germans are threatening to shoot him if he does not secretly hide stolen valuables; the Résistance is using his café as a safe-house for shot-down British airmen; and on top of that, he is trying to keep his passionate love affairs with the café waitresses secret from his wife. Whenever his wife Edith catches him in the arms of another woman, René invariably responds with the phrase "You stupid woman! Can you not see that..." followed by a convoluted explanation, which Edith always believes, leading to an apology from her. Two German officers are pressuring René to hide several paintings so they can keep them for themselves following the war. However, Hitler also wants the paintings, and sends Herr Flick of the Gestapo to the town to find them. hide |
"US soldier " = GI
A GI[5] is a private soldier in the US army ⇒
Origin: Contrary to popular belief, the term apparently is not an abbreviation for general infantryman, but rather derives from the term government (or general) issue (originally denoting equipment supplied to US forces).
hide
A GI[5] is a private soldier in the US army ⇒
she went off with a GI during the war.
Origin: Contrary to popular belief, the term apparently is not an abbreviation for general infantryman, but rather derives from the term government (or general) issue (originally denoting equipment supplied to US forces).
hide
In the wordplay, chorus[10] is used as a verb meaning to speak, sing, or utter (words, etc) in unison.
| 26a | Paste // menu's logo evenly over displays (4) |
Down
| 1d | Marine creature /with/ compact power or elegance (8) |
| 2d | Won a farm for conversion /and/ boat (3-2-3) |
Man-of-war[5] (also man-o'-war) is a historical term for an armed sailing ship.
| 4d | Solitary type /of/ bank worker on the phone? (5) |
| 5d | Possible outcome of reading // English with OK tutor (9) |
Scratching the Surface
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Read[5] is a British term meaning to study (an academic subject) at a university ⇒ (i) I’m reading English at Cambridge; (ii) he went to Manchester to read for a BA in Economics. |
| 6d | Number one // footballer being transferred? (11) |
George Best[5] (1946–2005) was a Northern Irish footballer [soccer player]. A winger for Manchester United, he was named European Footballer of the Year in 1968.
There is a lot of controversy about this clue in the comments on Big Dave's Crossword Blog.
In Britain, transfer[10] (said of a football player, especially a professional) means to change clubs or (said of a club, manager, etc) to sell or release (a player) to another club.
Thus, as the setter of the puzzle points out in a comment on Big Dave's site, a footballer "being transferred for £20m" is one "selling for £20m".
| 7d | Character keeps climbing to // ferret about (6) |
Rootle[5] is an informal British term for root (as a verb) ⇒
the terriers scuttled off to rootle through the brushwood.
| 8d | Bond returns /and/ admits defeat (6) |
Scratching the Surface
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| The surface reading alludes to James Bond[5] (known also by his code name 007), a fictional British secret agent in the spy novels of English author Ian Fleming (1908–1964). |
| 12d | Devious // computing (11) |
| 15d | Idiosyncrasy /in/ variety of cakes wins (9) |
| 16d | Royal // crimper, I also cut equally high and low (8) |
Scratching the Surface
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|---|---|
| Crimper[5] is an informal term for a hairdresser. |
| 17d | Admitted to a seedy club, that chap's // 26 (8) |
The
numeral "26" is a cross
reference indicator to clue 26a (show more ).
To complete the clue, a solver must replace the cross reference indicator with the solution to the clue starting in the light* identified by the cross reference indicator.
The cross reference indicator may include a directional indicator but this is customarily done only in situations where there are both Across and Down clues originating in the light that is being referenced.
* light-coloured cell in the grid
hide
To complete the clue, a solver must replace the cross reference indicator with the solution to the clue starting in the light* identified by the cross reference indicator.
The cross reference indicator may include a directional indicator but this is customarily done only in situations where there are both Across and Down clues originating in the light that is being referenced.
* light-coloured cell in the grid
hide
| 19d | Repair shoe/'s/ lump underfoot? (6) |
Cobble[5] (another term for cobblestone[5]) is a small round stone used to cover road surfaces⇒
the sound of horses' hooves on the cobbles.
| 20d | Part of body // being stroked occasionally (3,3) |
| 22d | Unveiled, she lent // beauty to mythology (5) |
I've marked the definition with a dotted underline as the wording is not entirely straightforward. I consider it to be a slightly cryptic manner of expressing "A beauty in mythology".
In Greek mythology, Helen[5] (popularly known as Helen of Troy) is the daughter of Zeus and Leda, born from an egg. In the Homeric poems she was the outstandingly beautiful wife of Menelaus, and her abduction by Paris (to whom she had been promised, as a bribe, by Aphrodite) led to the Trojan War.
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
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