Puzzle at a Glance
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Puzzle number in The Daily Telegraph
DT 29801 | |
Publication date in The Daily Telegraph
Friday, October 8, 2021 | |
Setter
Zandio | |
Link to full review
Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 29801]
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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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Notes
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This puzzle appears on the Monday Diversions page in the Saturday, January xx, 2022 edition of the National Post. | |
Introduction
I often find that clues that seemed impenetrable the night before become clear after a good night's sleep. This turned out to be a three-night puzzle—several clues were solved only after sleeping on them for three nights!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 | Loose // favourite -- French one comes first (6) |
This is the first of the three-night sleepers. I had actually thought of the correct solution earlier but had not written it in as I wasn't able to reconcile the meaning.
Unpick[5] (verb) means to undo the sewing of ⇒
Of course, you need to know beforehand that it fits, because you don't want to have to unpick all this stitching to alter it later.
| 4a | Publicises cruise, possibly // landing here? (8) |
This was the second three-night sleeper.
| 9a | Distance /made by/ set of clubs? (6) |
The league[2] is an obsolete unit of distance which can denote either:
- a unit for measuring distance travelled, usually taken to be 3 miles (about 4.8 km)
- a nautical measure equal to 1/20th of a degree or 3 international nautical miles (3.456 statute miles or 5.556 km)
| 10a | May 1, lucky to be unoccupied? // Very! (8) |
| 12a | Son using which method to lead trial // presentation? (8) |
This was the third three-night sleeper.
| 13a | Thrown back from seashore, lobsters // dance (6) |
The bolero[5] is a Spanish dance in simple triple time.
| 15a | Expert handling turnover in the cinema? (13) |
| 18a | Thickset // like a St Bernard rescue dog? (6-7) |
| 20a | Bear caught in Welsh river // flood (6) |
The Dee[5,7] is a river that rises in North Wales and flows into England, past Chester and on into the Irish Sea.
* Another River Dee[5,7] rises in the Grampian Mountains of northeastern Scotland and flows eastwards past Balmoral Castle to the North Sea at Aberdeen.
| 22a | Terrible event, perhaps -- /in/ fact good, strangely (3,2,3) |
| 24a | Taking a sample round, traffic it at Scene, // feeling high (8) |
| 25a | Lizard // King mural -- neat, but odd bits missing (6) |
| 26a | Refuse // to reduce volume (4,4) |
| 27a | Standing // figures with no energy (6) |
Down
| 1d | Except // when cloudy, going topless (6) |
| 2d | One's not at all clear /or/ sure -- a pope should clarify (3-6) |
Pea-souper[5] is an informal British term for a very thick yellowish fog ⇒
he was alone in one of London's infamous pea-soupers.
| 3d | Lord's house // briefly seen as nicest in the middle (6,2,7) |
While the answer was so obvious that I just bunged it in, I only figured out the wordplay as I was writing the review.
The abbreviation (seen briefly) for Church of England[10] is CE[10], the middle letters of niCEst.
| 5d | Eye part // of Dublin, maybe avoiding hotel (4) |
| 6d | Perhaps Plato's classes // shared opinions (6,2,7) |
Plato[5] (circa 429-circa 347 BC) was a Greek philosopher. (show more )
A disciple of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, Plato founded the Academy in Athens. An integral part of his thought is the theory of ‘ideas’ or ‘forms’, in which abstract entities or universals are contrasted with their objects or particulars in the material world. His philosophical writings are presented in the form of dialogues, with Socrates as the principal speaker; they include the Symposium and the Timaeus. Plato's political theories appear in the Republic, in which he explored the nature and structure of a just society.
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A disciple of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, Plato founded the Academy in Athens. An integral part of his thought is the theory of ‘ideas’ or ‘forms’, in which abstract entities or universals are contrasted with their objects or particulars in the material world. His philosophical writings are presented in the form of dialogues, with Socrates as the principal speaker; they include the Symposium and the Timaeus. Plato's political theories appear in the Republic, in which he explored the nature and structure of a just society.
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| 7d | Articulated beams // put up (5) |
| 8d | Drama opening, bypassing a // southern city (8) |
This was the fourth three-night sleeper.
Plymouth[5] is a port and naval base in Devon, south-eastern England. In 1620 it was the scene of the Pilgrim Fathers' departure to North America in the Mayflower.
| 11d | Eastern sierra -- wild scene /for/ nature (7) |
Scratching the Surface
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| Especially in Spanish-speaking countries or the western US, sierra[5] is a term for a long jagged mountain chain. |
| 14d | Expand // chest, prepared to limit time on run (7) |
"run " = R [cricket notation]
| 16d | Disgruntled // six-footer follows quarry entering pub (9) |
"six-footer " = ANT
An inn[5] is a pub, typically one in the country, in some cases providing accommodation.
| 17d | Bottom in Eton, I prepared /to be/ disciplined (8) |
Scratching the Surface
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Eton College[7], often informally referred to simply as Eton, is an English independent
boarding school for boys
located in Eton, Berkshire, near Windsor (show more ).
The school was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor". It is one of ten English schools, commonly referred to as public schools, regulated by the Public Schools Act of 1868.
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| 19d | More than one standard // is about trade (6) |
| 21d | Runner-up? // Nearer being a non-starter (5) |
| 23d | Compete with // conviction (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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