Puzzle at a Glance
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Puzzle number in The Daily Telegraph
DT 29767 | |
Publication date in The Daily Telegraph
Monday, August 30, 2021 | |
Setter
Campbell (Allan Scott) | |
Link to full review
Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 29767]
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Big Dave's Crossword Blog review written by
Falcon | |
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
I reviewed this puzzle for Big Dave's Crossword Blog when it originally appeared in The Daily Telegraph back in August. I hadn't noticed at the time—perhaps because I was writing for a predominantly British audience—but there are quite a lot of terms used that have quite different meanings here than they do in the UK.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 | Servant // with first husband at the front (10) |
Handmaiden[5] (another term for handmaid[5]) is an archaic term for a female servant.
| 6a | Lived initially in large // apartment (4) |
Here and There
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Flat[5] is the British term for what would be called an apartment[5] in North America. (show more )
The term apartment is used in Britain, but seemingly in a more restricted sense than in North America, applying to either temporary or upscale accommodation. As Lexico (Oxford Dictionaries) puts it, an apartment[5] is:
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| 10a | Jelly /and/ cream shortly after seeing that (5) |
| 11a | Go and suggest // what a DJ may use (9) |
Here, There and Somewhere Else
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In Canada, as in Britain, table[5]
means to present formally for discussion or consideration at a meeting ⇒ more than 200 amendments to the bill have already been tabled. On the other hand, in the US, the term table[5] has essentially the opposite connotation, meaning to postpone consideration of ⇒ I'd like the issue to be tabled* for the next few months. * In Canada, we might say that the issue has been shelved or put on the back burner — expressions that I suspect may also be well-known in both the US and the UK. |
| 12a | Tot /in/ American's brandy glass (7) |
Here and There
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| The solution to this clue has a different meaning in the UK than it does in North America. Snifter[5] is an informal British term for a small quantity of an alcoholic drink ⇒ care to join me for a snifter?. In North America, a snifter[5] is a balloon glass for brandy ⇒ he drained the bottle into a snifter. |
| 13a | News agency // awfully sure about shortened name (7) |
Reuters[5] is an international news agency founded in London in 1851 by Paul Julius Reuter. The agency pioneered the use of telegraphy, building up a service used today by newspapers and radio and television stations in most countries.
| 14a | Instructs wizard /in/ anorak (12) |
Harry Potter[7] is the title character in a series of fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the life of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
In Britain, anorak[5] is an informal, derogatory term for a studious or obsessive person with unfashionable and largely solitary interests ⇒
with his thick specs, shabby shoes, and grey suit, he looks a bit of an anorak. The term derives from the anoraks* worn by trainspotters (see below), regarded as typifying this kind of person.
* An anorak[5] is a waterproof jacket, typically with a hood, of a kind originally used in polar regions. Although the terms anorak and parka[7] are sometimes used interchangeably, they are actually quite different garments. Strictly speaking, an anorak is a waterproof, hooded, pull-over jacket without a front opening, and sometimes drawstrings at the waist and cuffs, and a parka is a hip-length cold-weather coat, typically stuffed with down or very warm synthetic fiber, and with a fur-lined hood.
Trainspotter[5] is a British term for a person who collects train or locomotive numbers as a hobby*.
* The name is also often used in a derogatory sense to refer to a person who obsessively studies the minutiae of any minority interest or specialized hobby ⇒
the idea is to make the music really really collectable so the trainspotters will buy it in their pathetic thousands.
| 18a | Represented as foremost of lackeys -- who better? (6-6) |
I would say this is a true &lit. clue[7] (or, as they prefer to call it on Big Dave's Crossword Blog, an all-in-one clue), a clue in which the entire clue is, according to one reading, wordplay and, when read a different way, definition—in this instance, a cryptic definition which (I believe) may allude to the expression chief cook and bottle-washer.
Bottle-washer[10] is an informal term for a menial [a domestic servant or servile person] or factotum [a handyman or person employed to do all kinds of work].
The expression chief cook and bottle-washer[5] is an informal term for a person who performs a variety of important but routine tasks. Personally, I would have said "important and routine", rather than "important but routine" as I think of the word as describing a person who performs some tasks that are important and others that are menial—like an office manager who closes the business at the end of the day, then takes out the garbage on the way to make the bank deposit.
Thus, in this expression, it is a "bottle-washer" who metaphorically "represents" those doing menial tasks just as it is the "chief cook" who represents those doing important tasks.
| 21a | Cordial about head of human // skeleton (7) |
This clue seems to incorporate a North American usage of "cordial".
Here and There
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| In Britain, cordial[10]
is a drink with a fruit base, usually sold in concentrated form and diluted with water before being drunk. In North America, cordial[5] is another term for liqueur[5], a strong, sweet alcoholic spirit, usually drunk after a meal. |
Cassis[5] (also known as crème de cassis[5]) is a syrupy blackcurrant liqueur produced mainly in Burgundy.
| 23a | Intrinsic feature /of/ German city church (7) |
Essen[5] is an industrial city in the Ruhr valley, in northwestern Germany.
| 24a | Radical hairstyle /for/ swimmer? (3,6) |
A mullet[1] is a style of haircut which The Chambers Dictionary cheekily defines as a hairstyle that is short at the front, long at the back, and ridiculous all round.
Origin: The word perhaps comes from the English dialect term mullethead, meaning a fool.
A mullet[5] is any of two families of various chiefly marine fish that are widely caught for food. The red mullet[5] is an elongated fish with long barbels on the chin, living in warmer seas and widely valued as a food fish. The grey mullet[5] is a thick-bodied, blunt-headed fish that typically lives in inshore or estuarine waters and is a valued food fish.
| 25a | Join // one heading for Exeter (5) |
Scratching the Surface
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| Exeter[5] is a city in southwestern England, the county town of Devon, on the River Exe. Exeter was founded by the Romans, who called it Isca. |
| 26a | Silent // animated Disney film, unfinished (4) |
Dumbo[7] is a 1941 American animated film produced by Walt Disney. The film tells the story of Jumbo Jr., an elephant who is cruelly nicknamed "Dumbo", as in "dumb". He is ridiculed for his big ears, but in fact he is capable of flying by using his ears as wings.
| 27a | Fair's fare? (10) |
Candyfloss[5] is the British name for cotton candy.
Down
| 1d | Husky /in/ frost leading empty sledge (6) |
Here and There
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| In North America, sledge[1,2,3,4,5,10,11,12,14]
would clearly be considered to be a less commonly — perhaps even rarely — used name for a sled[1,2,3,4,5,10,11,12,14]
while, in the UK, the situation would appear to be reversed*. |
| 2d | New, a shocking pink // serviette (6) |
| 3d | Scoff awkward to rustle up /for/ a first course, perhaps (4,6,4) |
Mock turtle soup[5] is imitation turtle soup made from a calf's head.
| 4d | Audience /in/ Bury to contend with (9) |
Scratching the Surface
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| Bury[7] [pronounced berry*] is a large market town in Greater Manchester, England, on the River Irwell 7.9 miles (12.7 km) northwest of Manchester. * Although according to Gazza in a review on Big Dave's Crossword Blog As someone who used to live in said borough I have to say that this is not the way the locals pronounce it – they make it sound more like flurry than merry. |
| 5d | Mistake /made by/ troublesome child forgetting time (5) |
| 7d | Look to conceal terribly bitter // text (8) |
A libretto[5] is the text of an opera or other long vocal work.
| 8d | Brief delight, certainly, /getting/ prize (8) |
| 9d | Dance // show off (5,4,5) |
| 15d | Had doubts about // speed cuts working (9) |
| 16d | Hidden from view, // old boy's pickled (8) |
"old boy " = OB
In Britain, an old boy[5] (abbreviation OB[2]) is:
hide
In Britain, an old boy[5] (abbreviation OB[2]) is:
- a former male student of a school or college ⇒
an old boy of Banbury County School
- a former male member of a sports team or company ⇒
the White Hart Lane old boy squared the ball to present an easy chance from 12 yards
‘Look here, old boy,’ he said.
hide
| 17d | Almost mandatory somehow, /to show/ how lottery numbers are drawn? (2,6) |
| 19d | Jones the architect checking daughter/'s/ colour (6) |
Inigo Jones[5] (1573–1652) was an English architect and stage designer. He introduced the Palladian style to England; notable buildings include the Queen’s House at Greenwich (1616) and the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall (1619).
| 20d | Parliamentary break /in/ depression? (6) |
Depression[5] is used in the sense of a sunken place or hollow on a surface.
| 22d | Dance // in rehearsals again (5) |
The salsa[5] is a type of Latin American dance performed to music incorporating elements of jazz and rock.
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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