Puzzle at a Glance
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Puzzle number in The Daily Telegraph
DT 29676 | |
Publication date in The Daily Telegraph
Saturday, May 15, 2021 | |
Setter
Cephas (Peter Chamberlain) | |
Link to full review
Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 29676 – Hints]Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 29676 – Review] | |
Big Dave's Crossword Blog review written by
Tilsit (Hints)crypticsue (Review) | |
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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As this was a Saturday "Prize Puzzle" in Britain, there are two entries related to it on Big Dave's Crossword Blog — the first, posted on the date of publication, contains hints for selected clues while the second is a full review issued following the entry deadline for the contest. The vast majority of reader comments will generally be found attached to the "hints" posting with a minimal number — if any — accompanying the full review.
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Introduction
After a rather vigorous mental workout yesterday, Cephas puts us through a much gentler one today. Naturally, I failed to notice it is a pangram (all letters of the alphabet appear at least once in the solution).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 | Inappropriate /of/ problem daughter to purchase magazine (3-5) |
Time[7] is an American news magazine and news website published and based in New York City. The magazine, founded in 1923, published weekly until this year when it switched to bi-weekly.
* In addition to the US edition, Time also publishes several regional international editions. A so-called "Canadian edition" which was essentially the US edition with Canadian advertising and a token amount of Canadian editorial content was discontinued in 2008.
| 6a | About to admit I would // get carried away? (4) |
| 9a | Blonde // careless entering marsh (6) |
A fen[5] is a low and marshy or frequently flooded area of land.
| 10a | Disappear without question // overcome (8) |
| 11a | Where foxes go /to be/ practical (4-2-5) |
An earth[5] is the underground lair of a badger or fox ⇒
Foxes, chased to exhaustion and death, are often dug out of their earths and feel great pain.
| 14a | Moon starer, possibly (10) |
The entire clue is both wordplay and definition.
| 15a | Sea // bass (4) |
The deep[5] is a literary term for the sea ⇒
denizens of the deep.
| 16a | Enthusiasm /shown by/ last letter oddly missing from bedsit (4) |
Scratching the Surface
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| Bedsit[5] (also bedsitter or bed-sitting room) is a British term for a one-roomed unit of accommodation typically consisting of combined bedroom and sitting room with cooking facilities. |
| 17a | Disorder, // Georgia's audible deception went away (7,3) |
Gastric flu[2] is a colloquial term for any of several disorders of the stomach and intestinal tract, the main symptoms of which are nausea, diarrhoea, abdominal cramps and fever.
| 19a | Device showing if someone's been at the gin? (6,5) |
| 22a | Keeping supplies of // hose (8) |
I changed by mind twice regarding how to mark this clue—going from double definition to cryptic definition and back to double definition. I debated with myself whether a single "stocking" constitutes "hose". In the end, I concluded that if one considers the stocking to be a collection of one, then perhaps it could be called hose.
| 23a | Fine-tune // commercial exactly (6) |
| 24a | Smear // most of book cover's contents (4) |
| 25a | Back // twisted once more? (8) |
I struggled to think of a situation where "back" and "returned" could be used interchangeably. After considerable thought, I came up with a librarian saying
The book's backor
The book's returned(although I think the later case is a colloquialism where the grammatically correct statement would be
The book has been returned).
Down
| 2d | Flower // girl // from the valley? (4) |
I would say the best way to describe this clue is a cryptic definition in which two precise definitions are embedded. The phrase "from the valley" is not independent wordplay but rather a cryptic allusion to one variety of the first definition.
Lily of the valley[10] is a small Eurasian and North American plant of the lily family cultivated as a garden plant, having two long oval leaves and spikes of white bell-shaped flowers.
| 3d | Army team/'s/ vehicle (4) |
"army " = TA [Territorial Army, "old" name for the Army Reserve]
Eleven[5] (often appearing as a Roman numeral XI) is the number of players in* a cricket[7] side [team] or an Association football[7] [soccer] team — and is frequently used as a metonym for such a team ⇒
at cricket I played in the first eleven.
* Note that, in Britain, the words "side" and "team" are synonymous and a player is said to be "in a side" or "in a team" rather than "on a team" as one would say in North America.
| 4d | Scotsman before long /getting/ wind (7) |
Today, for a change, the Scotsman is neither Ian nor Mac.
The word for man in Scottish and Northern England dialects is mon[12].
| 5d | Surprisingly I'm seen deserving /to/ be an angel (6,9) |
| 6d | Reported soldier/'s/ bitterness (7) |
Ranker[5] is a British term for a soldier in the ranks; in other words, a private.
| 7d | One taking medication out of habit (4,6) |
| 8d | Set off twice knowing // it's a spreader of disease (6,3) |
Fly[5] is an informal British expression meaning knowing and clever ⇒
she’s fly enough not to get tricked out of it.
The tsetse[5] (also tsetse fly) is an African bloodsucking fly which bites humans and other mammals, transmitting sleeping sickness and nagana*.
* Nagana[5] is a disease of cattle, antelope, and other livestock in southern Africa, characterized by fever, lethargy, and oedema, and caused by trypanosome parasites transmitted by the tsetse fly.
| 12d | Healer/'s/ potatoes cooked and hot (9) |
An osteopath[10] is a practitioner of osteopathy[10], a system of healing based on the manipulation of bones or other parts of the body.
| 13d | Otherwise working on said holy agency // of public speaking (10) |
The solution was clear from the definition and checking letters, but the wordplay eluded me. However, I had read only halfway through crypticsue's explanation when the penny dropped.
In classical antiquity, an oracle[5] was a priest or priestess acting as a medium through whom advice or prophecy was sought from the gods. Thus, an agent of the gods or, in cryptic terms, a "holy agency".
| 17d | Pull up gentleman, accepting European /is/ more courageous (7) |
"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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| 18d | A recent cast // perform again (2-5) |
As an anagram indicator, cast[5] is used in the sense of to shape (metal or other material) by pouring it into a mould while molten ⇒
when hammered or cast, bronze could be made into tools.
| 20d | Open // some beer (4) |
Jar[5] is an informal British term for a glass of beer.
| 21d | Man perhaps // erected Helsinki houses (4) |
The Isle of Man[5]
(abbreviation IOM[5])
is an island in the Irish Sea (show more ).
The island is a British Crown dependency having home rule, with its own legislature (the Tynwald) and judicial system. It was part of the Norse kingdom of the Hebrides in the Middle Ages, passing into Scottish hands in 1266 for a time, until the English gained control in the early 15th century. Its ancient language, Manx, is still occasionally used for ceremonial purposes.
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The island is a British Crown dependency having home rule, with its own legislature (the Tynwald) and judicial system. It was part of the Norse kingdom of the Hebrides in the Middle Ages, passing into Scottish hands in 1266 for a time, until the English gained control in the early 15th century. Its ancient language, Manx, is still occasionally used for ceremonial purposes.
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Scratching the Surface
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| Helsinki[5] is the capital of Finland, a port in the south on the Gulf of Finland. |
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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