Puzzle at a Glance
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Puzzle number in The Daily Telegraph
DT 29908 | |
Publication date in The Daily Telegraph
Friday, February 11, 2022 | |
Setter
silvanus | |
Link to full review
Big Dave's Crossword Blog [DT 29908]
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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, June 4, 2022 edition of the National Post. | |
Introduction
As you can see from the "Falcon's experience" chart above, I needed quite a bit of help from my electronic assistants to complete this one.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 | Jumping straight on // funfair ride (5,5) |
Funfair[5] is a chiefly British term for a fair consisting of rides, sideshows, and other amusements ⇒ (i)
a travelling funfair set up every year; (ii)
a funfair ride.
Ghost train[5] is a British term for a miniature train at a funfair designed to scare its passengers with eerie sights and sounds.
| 6a | Intimate // function, close to capacity (4) |
In mathematics, a cosine[5] (abbreviation cos[5]) is the trigonometric function that is equal to the ratio of the side adjacent to an acute angle (in a right-angled triangle) to the hypotenuse.
| 9a | Ne'er-do-well wanting second // something to drink (5) |
Waster[5] is an informal term for a person who does little or nothing of value.
" second " = S [s[2]; measure of time]
| 10a | Vivid // report of selected Oxford college (9) |
Oriel College[7] is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England.
| 12a | Passionate // old travellers in retirement going to America (7) |
" old " = O[12] [linguistics;
OFr(Old French),
OE(Old English)]
Traveller[5] is a British term for a Gypsy or other nomadic person.
The Roma[5] (another term for Gypsies*) are a people originating in South Asia and traditionally having an itinerant way of life, living widely dispersed across Europe and North and South America and speaking a language (Romani) that is related to Hindi..
* The word Gypsy is now sometimes considered derogatory or offensive, and has been replaced in many official contexts by Romani or Roma, but it remains the most widely used term for members of this community among English speakers.
| 13a | Dance /from/ Strictly in second place? (5) |
The wordplay is cluing the second letter of "Strictly".
" tango " = T[5] [NATO Phonetic Alphabet[7]]
The tango[5] is a ballroom dance originating in Buenos Aires, characterized by marked rhythms and postures and abrupt pauses.
Scratching the Surface
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| Strictly Come Dancing[7] (informally known as Strictly) is a British television dance contest, featuring celebrity contestants, with professional dance partners competing in a ballroom and Latin dance competition. |
| 15a | Trap I've prepared /for/ soldier ... (7) |
| 17a | ... entering base, head of battalion almost cold /and/ automaton-like (7) |
| 19a | It's inconceivable // academic keeps large quantity of paper (5,2) |
A don[10] is a member of the teaching staff at a university or college, especially at Oxford or Cambridge.
A ream[5] is a quantity of 500 (formerly 480) sheets of paper.
| 21a | Nurse /and/ husband needing shady garden seat (7) |
" husband " = H [h[2]; genealogy]
| 22a | Crow discovered food container /for/ smaller avian species (5) |
The setter uses "discovered" to indicate that the solver must strip away the outer letters of the word [
A bin[10] (also called bread bin) is a small container for bread.
Here, There and Downunder
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| The European robin[7] (Erithacus rubecula), known simply as the robin or robin redbreast in the British Isles and Ireland is a small insectivorous passerine bird, specifically a chat, that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family (Turdidae), but is now considered to be an Old World flycatcher. Robins[5] differ markedly around the world:
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| 24a | Those selling // scrap gold, very small rings (7) |
" very " = V [v or v.[2]]
" small " = S[5] [clothing size]
| 27a | Remove clue I'd composed /that gets/ laughed at (9) |
| 28a | Native American leaving hotel // swiftly (5) |
The Apache[5] are an American Indian people living chiefly in New Mexico and Arizona. Under the leadership of Geronimo, the Apache were the last American Indian people to be conquered by the European settlers.
" hotel " = H[5] [NATO Phonetic Alphabet[7]]
| 29a | Raised // money on the radio (4) |
Bread[5] is an informal term for money.
| 30a | Doctor hugs Daniel, /having/ suffered hardship (10) |
Down
| 1d | Dress // shortly pregnant wife will wear (4) |
Gone[5] is an informal term denoting having reached a specified time in a pregnancy ⇒
Most teenage mums won't even go to their doctor until they are six or seven months gone because they are so afraid.
" wife " = W [w[2]; genealogy]
| 2d | Ban /from/ clubs I would visit regularly on Saturdays? Yes (9) |
" clubs " = C[1] [card suit]
| 3d | Roughly positioned underneath end of elephant/'s/ trunk (5) |
| 4d | Lecture // Trevor perhaps holds over (7) |
| 5d | Elected Conservative, one with interminably painful // tooth (7) |
" Conservative " = C[5] [member of a British political party]
| 7d | Stars // performing around carnival location (5) |
Rio de Janeiro[5] [commonly known as Rio] is a city in eastern Brazil, on the Atlantic coast. The chief port of Brazil, it was the country’s capital from 1763 until 1960, when it was replaced by Brasilia.
The Carnival in Rio de Janeiro[7] is a world famous festival held before Lent every year and considered the biggest carnival in the world with two million people per day on the streets. The first festivals of Rio date back to 1723.
In astronomy, Orion[5] is a conspicuous constellation (the Hunter), said to represent a hunter holding a club and shield. It lies on the celestial equator and contains many bright stars, including Rigel, Betelgeuse, and a line of three that form Orion's Belt.
| 8d | Timid character // that whistle-blower shows every so often (6,4) |
In soccer and some other games, a yellow card[5] is a yellow card shown by the referee to a player being cautioned ⇒
Eddis was shown the yellow card for a late tackle* on Candlish. [A second yellow card results in ejection from the game.]
* In soccer and field hockey, a tackle[5] is an act of playing the ball, or attempting to do so, when it is in the possession of an opponent — not, as in rugby and North American football, an act of seizing and attempting to stop a player in possession of the ball.
| 11d | Time // singer's back after voice trouble occasionally? (7) |
| 14d | Type of seafood /with/ crispbread crackers (6,4) |
The spider crab[5] is a crab with long thin legs and a compact pear-shaped body, which is camouflaged in some kinds by attached sponges and seaweed.
| 16d | Annual // large staff bill is after tax essentially (7) |
" large " = L[5] [clothing size]
There may be a bit of cryptic licence involved in the common cryptic crossword practice of equating "bill" to "account" to the bookkeeping abbreviation "a/c".
" account " = AC [a/c[5]]
Origin: from the obsolete phrase account current, denoting a continuous account detailing sums paid and received
The indicator "essentially" denotes the letters that form the essence or core of the fodder.
| 18d | PM // is to broadcast about introduction of allowances per person (9) |
Taoiseach[5] is the title accorded the prime minister of the Republic of Ireland.
| 20d | Set in Nevada, love a Fitzgerald // short story (7) |
" Nevada " = NV[5] [in official postal use]
" love " = O [love[5]; nil score in tennis]
Ella Fitzgerald[5] (1917–1996) was an American jazz singer, known for her distinctive style of scat singing.
Scratching the Surface
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| F. Scott Fitzgerald[5] (1896–1940) was an American novelist. His novels, in particular The Great Gatsby (1925), provide a vivid portrait of the US during the jazz era of the 1920s. |
| 21d | Suspend scoundrel // having a guilty look (7) |
| 23d | Sign /of/ worry, mostly (5) |
| 25d | Middle Eastern national /and/ extremists expelled from country (5) |
An Omani[5] is a native or inhabitant of Oman[5,7], officially the Sultanate of Oman, an Arab country at the southeastern corner of the Arabian peninsula.
| 26d | Starring role, // it could be made for boxer? (4) |
Lead[5] is a British* term for leash, a strap or cord for restraining and guiding a dog or other domestic animal ⇒
the dog is our constant walking companion and is always kept on a lead.
* Despite being characterized as a British term by Lexico (Oxford Dictionaries), lead[3] is defined in The American Heritage Dictionary as another name for a leash.
References
Key to Reference Sources:
[1] - The Chambers Dictionary, 11th Edition
[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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