Puzzle at a Glance
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Puzzle number in The Daily Telegraph
DT 29404 | |
Publication date in The Daily Telegraph
Wednesday, July 1, 2020 | |
Setter
Jay (Jeremy Mutch) | |
Link to full review
Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 29404]
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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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Introduction
The run of gentle puzzles continues with this enjoyable offering from Jay.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 | Authority // on courses in for training (11) |
| 9a | Customs /may see/ performance cutting costs (9) |
| 10a | Drama // seen in Europe rarely (5) |
| 11a | Shakespeare's world could be this // pink (6) |
"The world's mine oyster"*[7] is a line spoken by Pistol to Falstaff in Shakespeare's comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor.
* The phrase has spawned a well-known idiom in a slightly modified form "The world is your oyster"[2] meaning that anything you need or want is yours for the taking; you can go anywhere and do anything (which is actually quite different from the meaning of the line in Shakespeare's play).
Oyster[2] denotes the pale greyish beige or pink colour of an oyster.
| 12a | Women must have a way with liquid fuel /being/ uneconomical (8) |
The abbreviation for women or women's is W[2]. The latter designates a clothing size while the former might be seen on the door to the ladies' room.
| 13a | L. S. Lowry occasionally chanced // sweet course (6) |
Sweet[5] is a British term for a sweet dish forming a course of a meal; in other words, a dessert.
Sorbet[14] is the British name for what is known in North America as sherbet*, a frozen dessert made with fruit juice, sugar, and water.
* In Britain, the term sherbet[5] denotes something quite different, a flavoured sweet effervescent powder eaten alone or made into a drink ⇒
disks of fruit-flavoured rice paper filled with sherbet.
| 15a | Little indication of sadness? (8) |
It's all relative, I suppose
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One dictionary defines teardrop[10] as a large tear that comes from the eye when crying ⇒ Big, fat teardrops ran down my face. |
| 18a | Some foreign aid is bought back /as/ result of volcanic activity (8) |
Obsidian[5] is a hard, dark, glasslike volcanic rock formed by the rapid solidification of lava without crystallization.
| 19a | Plant // a bulb with no end of soil (6) |
An agaric[2] is any of various fungi, such as a mushroom, that produce an umbrella-shaped spore-bearing structure with a central vertical stem supporting a circular cap.
| 21a | Mock, eating one's hot and cold // food (4,4) |
| 23a | Tastes discovered by sailors // at the back (6) |
The setter uses "discovered" to indicate that the solver must strip away the outer letters of the word [
| 26a | A look that inwardly /may be/ a greeting (5) |
| 27a | Sleep /sees/ the brain changing shape, ultimately (9) |
| 28a | Mammal /seeing/ reptile slip off (11) |
The pipistrelle[5] (also pipistrelle bat) is a small insectivorous Old World bat with jerky, erratic flight.
Post Mortem
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|---|---|
| With all the checking letters in place, I used the dictionary to determine the placement of the remaining letters. |
Down
| 1d | Ample // evidence of debt impounded by police (7) |
| 2d | Comes close to /being/ under arrest, regularly (5) |
| 3d | Those people after working with purpose /must be/ improving (2,3,4) |
| 4d | Rifle // fire (4) |
| 5d | Bound /to find/ European in unexpected need (8) |
| 6d | Settle on // tubers, twisted at the end (5) |
| 7d | Marine food // concession may welcome visit (7) |
| 8d | Salt /produced by/ burn covering food (8) |
Salt[3,10] is an informal term for a sailor, especially one who is old and experienced.
Post Mortem
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|---|---|
| I was delayed significantly by misreading the fourth word as "bum". |
| 14d | Current device // succeeded in dispersing rioters (8) |
A resistor[5] is a device having resistance to the passage of an electric current.
| 16d | Doctor // gets air circulating between runs (9) |
"run " = R [cricket notation]
In Britain and New Zealand, a registrar[10] is a hospital doctor senior to a houseman[5] [hospital intern] but junior to a consultant[5] [hospital doctor of senior rank within a specific field], specializing in either medicine (medical registrar) or surgery (surgical registrar).
| 17d | Skip following lectures /and/ discuss business (4,4) |
| 18d | On holiday, writing /becomes/ casual (7) |
| 20d | Gather // religious establishment mostly suppresses ecstasy (7) |
"ecstasy " = E [the illicit drug Ecstasy]
E[5] is an abbreviation for the drug Ecstasy* or a tablet of Ecstasy ⇒ (i)
* Ecstasy[5] is an illegal amphetamine-based synthetic drug with euphoric effects, originally produced as an appetite suppressant. Also called MDMA (Methylenedioxymethamphetamine).
hide
E[5] is an abbreviation for the drug Ecstasy* or a tablet of Ecstasy ⇒ (i)
people have died after taking E; (ii)
being busted with three Es can lead to stiff penalties.
* Ecstasy[5] is an illegal amphetamine-based synthetic drug with euphoric effects, originally produced as an appetite suppressant. Also called MDMA (Methylenedioxymethamphetamine).
hide
| 22d | Vice /seen in/ cold light (5) |
| 24d | Correspondence /making/ half of them sicken (5) |
| 25d | Goes out /seeing/ poor babe's missing area (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] - 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)
[15] - CollinsDictionary.com (Penguin Random House LLC/HarperCollins Publishers Ltd )
Signing off for today — Falcon
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