Puzzle at a Glance
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Puzzle number in The Daily Telegraph
DT 29785 | |
Publication date in The Daily Telegraph
Monday, September 20, 2021 | |
Setter
Campbell (Allan Scott) | |
Link to full review
Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 29785]
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Big Dave's Crossword Blog review written by
pommers | |
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 found this puzzle to be a fairly gentle mental workout. However, with a long list of other tasks demanding my attention and wishing to get to work quickly writing the review, I may have been a bit hasty in calling in electronic help.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 | Accelerate /when/ favourite's back in the lead (4,2) |
| 5a | Lark, // notice, in flight (8) |
| 9a | Popular, a New York fixture, // whatever happens (2,3,5) |
| 10a | Examine // some graduate students (4) |
| 11a | Truthfulness /of/ account given by member of the clergy's office (8) |
A curacy[5] is the office of a curate, or the tenure of this ⇒
he served his curacy in Northampton.
* In the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches, a curate[5,7] is member of the clergy engaged as assistant to a vicar, rector, or parish priest.
| 12a | Piece that is /for/ one who's just started (6) |
A piece[5] is a figure or token used to make moves in a board game ⇒
a chess piece.
"rook " = R [chess piece]
R[5] is an abbreviation for rook that is used in recording moves in chess.
A rook[5] (also known by the informal, old-fashioned term castle*[5]) is a chess piece, typically with its top in the shape of a battlement, that can move (if not obstructed by another chess piece or pawn) any number of spaces in any direction along a rank or file on which it stands. Each player starts the game with two rooks at opposite ends of the first rank.
* It is apparent from numerous comments on Big Dave's Crossword Blog over the years that chess purists hold that the proper name for this piece is a rook and that under no circumstances whatsoever is it ever to be referred to as a castle. Furthermore, they take great umbrage should those of us less attuned to the niceties of the "game of kings" happen to commit this cardinal sin.
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R[5] is an abbreviation for rook that is used in recording moves in chess.
A rook[5] (also known by the informal, old-fashioned term castle*[5]) is a chess piece, typically with its top in the shape of a battlement, that can move (if not obstructed by another chess piece or pawn) any number of spaces in any direction along a rank or file on which it stands. Each player starts the game with two rooks at opposite ends of the first rank.
* It is apparent from numerous comments on Big Dave's Crossword Blog over the years that chess purists hold that the proper name for this piece is a rook and that under no circumstances whatsoever is it ever to be referred to as a castle. Furthermore, they take great umbrage should those of us less attuned to the niceties of the "game of kings" happen to commit this cardinal sin.
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| 13a | State /of/ Aunt Kath, regularly (4) |
| 15a | Love fine route followed, // naturally (2,6) |
"love " = O [nil score in tennis]
In tennis, squash, and some other sports, love[5] is a score of zero or nil ⇒
Although folk etymology has connected the word with French l'oeuf 'egg', from the resemblance in shape between an egg and a zero, the term apparently comes from the phrase play for love (i.e. the love of the game, not for money).
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In tennis, squash, and some other sports, love[5] is a score of zero or nil ⇒
love fifteen. The resemblance of a zero written as a numeral (0) to the letter O leads to the cryptic crossword convention of the word "love" being used to clue this letter.
Although folk etymology has connected the word with French l'oeuf 'egg', from the resemblance in shape between an egg and a zero, the term apparently comes from the phrase play for love (i.e. the love of the game, not for money).
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| 18a | Tackle // a gutted plump fish (8) |
The roach[5] is an edible Eurasian freshwater fish of the carp family, popular with anglers. It can hybridize with related fishes, notably rudd and bream.
| 19a | Support // husband, advanced in years (4) |
| 21a | Specimen // politician put into auction (6) |
"politician " = MP
| 23a | A radio broadcast about left and right /in/ force (8) |
As a noun, railroad[2] is a North American, especially US, term for a railway. However, that does not seem to hold when it is used as a verb, given that one of the meanings in Chambers 21st Century Dictionary is (colloquial) to rush or force (a bill) through parliament.
| 25a | Nobleman /given/ attention by lake (4) |
An earl[5] is a British nobleman ranking* above a viscount and below a marquess.
* the third highest of the five ranks of British nobility — duke, marquess, earl, viscount, and baron
| 26a | Formal proposal // concerning answer to problem (10) |
| 27a | Severely criticise article on // Roman temple (8) |
The Pantheon[7] is a former Roman temple, now a church, in Rome, Italy.
| 28a | In // close, judge houses (6) |
Down
| 2d | Shot in the arm // in Washington, I collapsed (5) |
| 3d | Clerical worker /in/ dock, one dealing in drugs (3-6) |
The best explanation for the wordplay that I come come up with is that the setter might have used dock[5] in the sense of the enclosure in a criminal court where a defendant stands or sits.
However, I was to discover from pommers' review on Big Dave's Crossword Blog that a better explanation exists.
A pen[5] is a a covered dock* for a submarine or other warship.
* In Britain, unlike North America, a dock[5] is not a pier or jetty but an enclosed area of water in a port for the loading, unloading, and repair of ships.
Pen-pusher[5] is an informal British term for a person with a clerical job involving a lot of tedious and repetitive paperwork.
North American term: pencil-pusher
| 4d | Page about marvellous // quickly assembled property (6) |
| 5d | All, without exception, // envy her sort? Some, anyhow (5,7,3) |
| 6d | New picture frames charged originally // at a reduced rate (3-5) |
| 7d | Courtyard /built by/ Irishman I love? (5) |
One quickly discovers that most of the Irishmen one meets in Crosswordland seem to be named Pat.
The "love" from 15a makes a return appearance.
| 8d | Ring about second young lady/'s/ redundancy (9) |
Here and There
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Ring[5] is an informal — more or less British (show more ) — term for:
In North America, the word would seem to be more accepted as a noun ( I'll give you a ring) than as a verb ( I'll ring you). According to various dictionaries, the word ring used in this sense is:
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Redundancy[5] is a British term denoting the state of being no longer in employment because there is no more work available ⇒ (i)
the factory’s workers face redundancy; (ii)
the car giant is expected to announce around 5,000 redundancies.
| 14d | Best fruit /for/ boss (3,6) |
| 16d | Cinema worker /in/ uniform reset the reels (9) |
| 17d | Having few worries // about a heartless whistle-blower (8) |
| 20d | Cocktail /made by/ male wearing waistcoat (6) |
Waistcoat[3] is the British term for the garment that North Americans would call a vest*.
* In Britain, a vest[3] is an item of underwear for the upper body.
A gilet[2] is:
- a garment like a waistcoat
- a quilted sleeveless jacket
A gimlet[5] is a cocktail of gin (or sometimes vodka) and lime juice.
| 22d | Guide // the Italian aboard vessel (5) |
In Italian, the masculine singular form of the definite article is il[8].
| 24d | Steer clear of // area containing nothing (5) |
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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