Times 26689 - Paging General Knowledge!

Solving time: 28 minutes

Music: Steve Turre, Viewpoint






As I was driving out of the grocery store parking lot this morning, the car immediately in front of me had a bumper sticker "I Love My Coton de Tulear". Ooops, there's another breed of dog I've never heard of, and I watched the most of the Westminster Dog Show on TV this year. I do hope that they don't have bumper stickers like that in the UK, as we wouldn't want to give the setters any ideas.

General knowledge is so vast, it is impossible to know everything. Today's puzzle had some very clever clues based on very specific bits of general knowledge, and if you happen not to know a necessary bit of information, you're going to be reduced to biffing. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

I was actually rather amazed to be able to solve this one as quickly as I did. I certainly had to dredge up a lot of half-remembered bits to explain some of the clues. Fortunately for our loyal followers, I will be sure to carefully research my vague memories as I write the blog, so that no one will be further confused by misinformation.

Across
1	PUFFING, PUFFIN + G[et].
5	CASHEW, C(A S[econd])HEW, where 'chew' is used as a noun.
8	PALANQUIN, P(A)LAN + QUIN. A brilliant and tricky clue, with a cleverly concealed literal. Over here in the USA, it's 'quint', not 'quin', so UK-centric as well.
9	ROUTE, OUTER with the R moved to the beginning, as is clearly stated in the very explicit cryptic.
11	EDGAR, anagram of RAGED. None the wiser? Edgar, Earl of Gloucester is disguised as Poor Tom in King Lear. If that's not bad enough, EDGAR is also the SEC's automated system to access corporate filings, so watch out for that one, too.
12	TRUMPED UP, TRUMPE[t] + D.U.P, the Democratic Unionist Party.
13	ANYTHING, an allusion to the Irving Berlin song "Anything You Can Do". Never heard of it? Too bad.
15	MIRROR, double definition, with a question mark indicating that you may prefer a different publication.
17	DOMINO, DO + MINO[r]. Yes, besides being a game tile and a mask, a domino is also a cape.
19	BUNGALOW, BUNG (A) LOW, utilizing one of the lesser-known and UK-centric meanings of 'bung'.
22	ACCORDIAN, ACCORD + AI reversed. I can't explain the N, maybe my GK has run out? Er, let's try this one again. ACCORDION, ACCORD + NO. I backwards. There we go...
23	DEBUT, DEB(U)T. Debt has only recently become the chief feature of a university education.
24	THORN, THOR + N, one of the few write-ins.
25	INVENTIVE, IN[-c,+V]ENTIVE, a clever letter-substitution clue.
26	SEVERN, SEVER[e] N. The difficulty here is seeing that you are looking for a specific estuary.
27	REREDOS, R.E. + REDO + S[mall]. You may have wasted a lot of time looking for an anagram of S SCREEN.
Down
1	PEPPER AND SALT, anagram of APPALS, PRETEND, a bit of an &lit. The title of the very mediocre daily cartoon in the Wall Street Journal.
2	FALL GUY, FALL + GUY, where the chief deception involved reversing the order of the elements.
3	INNER, [w]INNER, another easy one.
4	GLUTTONY, G(L)UT + TONY, presumably a glutton.
5	CONCUR, CON + CUR.
6	STRIPLING, STR(I PL)ING.
7	ECUADOR, ECU + A.D. + OR. As usual, it is unclear whether the 18th-century French ecu or the European Currency Unit is meant.
10	EXPERT WITNESS, EX (PERT WIT) NESS, constructed from stock crossword elements.
14	HINDRANCE, HIND RA([broke]N)CE.
16	TURNOVER, double definition, or possibly a triple. 'Pastry' and 'that firm makes' - I'm not sure about 'case'. Discussion invited.
18	MICROBE, OB in anagram of CRIME, where ob. = obit, 'he died'.
20	LOBBIED, LOBB(I)ED, a very good and misleading surface.
21	MINION, MINI + ON.
23	DINER, sounds like DINAH, or it would if you were a non-rhotic proper chap. Now what was the name of that cat?