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Monk always puts us through our paces, and this week’s puzzle was no exception.
I spent most of the week on this one, and in fact didn’t quite manage to finish it off by blogging day. The biggest problem was of my own making, having written in WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL at 16, and not finding reason to revisit it.
There are some very nice clues in there, of course. I don’t see anything obviously thematic, but the unchecked letters in the top and bottom rows do all happen to be musical notes. Perhaps the notes CEGCEGGCE and DGBDFABD will mean something to someone, or perhaps it’s entirely a coincidence.
| Across | ||
| 9 | IMPEACHED | Found fault with fruit–half returned for wrapping (9) |
| PEACH in DEMI< | ||
| 10 | RIOJA | Wine or port served before Munich Agreement (5) |
| RIO + JA. “Ja” is of course German for “yes” | ||
| 11 | INCRUST | Wrapped in this month’s vintage coat (7) |
| CRU in INST. The initial “I” surprised me a little, but it turns out to be a perfectly cromulent spelling | ||
| 12 | TREACLE | Sentimentality born of Electra complex (7) |
| ELECTRA* | ||
| 13 | LAP UP | Scoop secured by conceited young man from Hollywood? (3,2) |
| An L.A. PUP could be a young man from Hollywood | ||
| 15 | PARSIMONY | Closeness of singer-songwriter in timeless gathering (9) |
| Paul SIMON in PAR[t]Y | ||
| 16 | WHATS THE BIG IDEA | Baathists endlessly weighed up a question when confused? (5,3,3,4) |
| (BAATHISTS + WEIGHE[d])* | ||
| 20 | HARMONICA | Mostly tough girl donates an organ (9) |
| HAR[d] + MONICA | ||
| 22 | HOLES | Scrapes line in scraping tools (5) |
| Line in HOES | ||
| 23 | PREAMPS | Power is inclined to suppress what’s right in morale boosters (7) |
| Power + ([moral]E in RAMPS) | ||
| 24 | TOOLBAR | In which you’d often edit help file? (7) |
| I’m not really sure here. Edit, Help and File are common options in the menu bar for a lot of software programs (if you look a few pixels north of this post, you’ll probably see them!), so we might be dealing with a cd. That said, in my mind a toolbar isn’t quite the same thing, so perhaps I’m missing some wordplay. | ||
| 26 | AIOLI | Boxer once touring west of Ireland, round Mayo, in part? (5) |
| (I[reland] + O) in Muhammad ALI | ||
| 27 | EXFOLIATE | Make outside shed (9) |
| cd. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | CIVIL LAW | It states rules about toilet outside one country house (5,3) |
| (I + VILLA) in W.C.< | ||
| 2 | EPIC | Large-scale constants of mathematics and physics (4) |
| E + PI + C, all of which are well-known constants | ||
| 3 | GAZUMP | Almost look upon arbitrator to break agreement? (6) |
| GAZ[e] + UMPire | ||
| 4 | CHUTZPAH | Dwelling in Cape Cruz finally getting fortune up front (8) |
| (HUT in (Cape + [cru]Z)) + HAP< | ||
| 5 | EDITOR | One expected to make final over tried to run (6) |
| (Over + TRIED)* | ||
| 6 | GREETING | Hello!, say, causes weeping for some (8) |
| dd. To “greet” means to cry, in Scotland at least, and no doubt elsewhere | ||
| 7 | CONCHOIDAL | Shelly caught boss losing head over heartless model (10) |
| Caught + [h]ONCHO + ID[e]AL. I thought the definition, “shelly”, rather nice here | ||
| 8 | EATERY | Discovered heater on railway diner (6) |
| [h]EATE[r] + RY. “Dis-covered” is also a nice touch | ||
| 14 | PRAIRIE DOG | Animal display that is at last filmed to fill TV slot (7,3) |
| (AIR + I.E. + [filme]D) in PROG | ||
| 17 | STORM JIB | Rage and refuse to go under sail (5,3) |
| STORM + JIB. The “refuse” meaning of “jib” was new to me, but it seems to be fairly common in the context of animals, such as a horse refusing a jump | ||
| 18 | BLASTOFF | Launch the ultimate in entertainment (8) |
| LAST in BOFF. Another new one for me, “boff” can seemingly mean “a box-office hit” or “a joke or humorous line producing hearty laughter”, either one of which might constitute entertainment | ||
| 19 | ASSORTED | Classified advertisement about fancy stores (8) |
| STORES* in AD | ||
| 20 | HEPTAD | Point in uppermost part of the Pleiades, for example (6) |
| PT in HEAD | ||
| 21 | ISSUED | Turned out kids regularly with most of their skin (6) |
| [k]I[d]S + SUED[e] | ||
| 22 | HOOPLA | Breaking shopaholic’s heart is fair game (6) |
| [sh]OPAHOL[ic]*. We all know someone addicted to shopahol | ||
| 25 | BOAB | Fluffy scarf found on black tropical tree (4) |
| BOA + Black | ||
* = anagram; [] = removed; < = reversed
“Monk always puts us through our paces, and this week’s puzzle was no exception.” I’d agree with that, but nevertheless this was an accessible puzzle with nothing obscure. I thought we were heading for a pangram but in the end there was no K or Q.
One quibble regarding 19dn; I wouldn’t equate “assorted” with “classified”. I’d have thought an assortment of things was more likely to be unclassified and they’d need to be sorted to be classified. But I haven’t checked Chambers or Collins so I’m open to correction.
Thanks, Monk and Simon
Thanks, Simon H, for excellent blog, to whom: the top and bottom rows (a seed, rather than a Nina) are respectively the (first eight) “blow” and “draw” HOLES (22ac) on a diatonic HARMONICA (20ac, my instrument of choice) in the key of C. To allan_c @1, the first definition of “assorted” in Chambers is “classified”.
Isn’t this crossword 8154? Certainly that’s what the paper says.
Hi Wil
You are absolutely right. I’ve made the correction.
16A is not (Baathists + weighe[d])* but (Baathist[s] + weighed)*.