Monk has certainly not disappointed us. Here is a nice crossword with some lovely clues and well-concealed definitions and anagrams. Some of the answers were very simple anagrams yet this was not immediately apparent. To me, at any rate.
The definitions are so well-concealed that in one case (13dn) I can’t see what it is. No doubt as usual …
Along the top row of unches is PUZZLE and along the bottom row is ONETON, so this is no doubt a similar commemoration to Dac’s yesterday. Presumably Monk has produced 100 crosswords for the Indy (although it seems to me to be more) and I hope he’ll continue to do so for years to come. Down the sides I can’t make any sense of it, and they are probably not significant.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 7 | CAUTIOUS — au in (c{laiman}t IOUs) |
| 9 | ELAPSE — (please)* |
| 10 | ETCH — {sk}etch |
| 11 | MADAGASCAR — aga scar on [= following] mad |
| 12 | PLAQUE — pla{y} qu E — def ‘film in bad taste’ — plaque is a film of saliva and bacteria that forms on teeth, so presumably has a bad taste |
| 14 | UP-ANCHOR — (or paunch)* — to weigh anchor is to raise it, and ‘up-anchor’ is an instruction to do this |
| 15 | MEALS ON WHEELS — CD |
| 17 | BLUECOAT — an archaic name for a serving-man, who may have been a sailor — (clue)* in boat — he worked in a boat, so ‘where he worked’ is an indicator to put it inside ‘boat’ |
| 19 | NAYSAY — “neighs” a{rs}y |
| 21 | MOUNTEBANK — (mount bank) around e — a mountebank is a fraud |
| 22 | pREVAils — hidden rev. |
| 23 | G(I J)OES |
| 24 | ERITREAN — (tire)rev. rea{so}n |
| Down | |
| 1 | PASTE L{ight} — the paste used in paste jewellery is finely ground glass |
| 2 | moUsTAcHe — the letters ‘Utah’ appear randomly in order through ‘moustache’ I think, although perhaps something a bit more precise is going on |
| 3 | ZOOM LENS — CD again |
| 4 | ZEUGMA — ({q}u{i}z game)* — zeugma is a figure of speech by which an adjective or verb is applied to two nouns, though strictly appropriate to only one of them; not to be confused with syllepsis — I learnt what these two words meant when I did my English Language ‘O’ Level and can never remember the difference |
| 5 | LAW SOCIETY — another CD — Monk may know that I’m not keen on CDs, but in his defence all three that have been used in this crossword are very good |
| 6 | ESCALOPS — sca{rce} in (S Pole)rev. |
| 8 | SODIUM NITRATE — Sodium nitrate is part of some explosives, and ‘Expanded form of microscopically small 3’ is because the chemical symbol for sodium nitrate is NaNO3 and ‘microscopically small is nano — nothing to do with 3 (ZOOM LENS), as I originally thought and couldn’t understand |
| 13 | QUATERNION — I thought this was something in maths, but amongst other things it’s more generally a set of four — this took me a long time to parse, but it seems to be qua{r}ter ({g}oin{g})rev. N — region = quarter and ‘queen possibly’ is the definition, which I can’t understand, unless it’s the meaning of the operation of changing one vector into another, which is arguably what a pawn does when it reaches the eighth rank and becomes a queen — no I don’t think so either |
| 15 | MA(L VOL 1)O |
| 16 | HAND-KNIT — (and think)* |
| 18 | ODENSE — if 0 is dense, i.e. nothing is dense, then perhaps all is clever |
| 20 | AXEMAN — (me)rev. in (Anax)* — an axeman is a slang word for a guitarist — nice little in-joke here, referring to Anax’s leisure pursuits |
| 22 | {p}A{y} F{o}R {t}O{p} |
Thanks for the blog, John and to Monk for this splendid puzzle.
Re 13 QUATERNION: I decided it was because there are 4 queens in a pack of cards.
… and it’s a pangram
Thanks John.
Well, I got there in the end, but only with lots of e-help and spotting the nina (even a nina-blind muppet like me takes notice when there are two Zs in the top row …) Well done to Monk on the century.
It was all well-constructed, just tough generally. I didn’t help myself by putting in ELAPSE as my first answer and then confidently entering BAR COUNCIL for 5dn (it works, doesn’t it?) So by the time I’d undone that and struggled with the rest, I felt a bit roughed up. But it’s Thursday, and I often get roughed up in the Indy on a Thursday.
I parsed UTAH like you, John.
Queen, like the Beatles, were a quarternion, surely?
Thomas99@4 – That makes more sense.
I couldn’t resist putting these two landmark puzzles together – for setter trivia fans, Dac was once Monk’s French teacher.
Tough puzzle. I needed aids at the end to get QUATERNION, BLUECOAT, and ZOOM LENS. If I had seen the nina I would have got the latter, but my brain felt like it had been scrubbed by a Brillo Pad by then.
SODIUM NITRATE went in from the definition, and now I’ve seen how John thinks it works I think it’s way too convoluted for a weekday puzzle, even a Thursday one.
This one was a bit beyond my abilities to finish, but I enjoyed the rest of it. In an attempt to parse SODIUM NITRATE I came up with SO MINUTE TRIAD which I thought was pushing it a bit for “microscopically small” and “3”, with a rather iffy anagrind of “expanded form”. It just goes to show what you can believe when your back’s against the wall!
Many thanks for the blog.
Sorry – didn’t mean anagrind did I? Anyway, it was wrong whatever it was.
Blinder of a puzzle and thanks for the blog.
I got as far as thinking that SODIUM NITRATE was something to do with its formula and figured there was something to be found on zoom lenses along the lines of an SF number but concluded it was beyond me. I spotted the nina really early and kept hoping that it would come in handy – which it did at the top. I completely forgot about the one at the bottom and got horribly stuck on my last one in, AFRO. Chump – I reckon even I might have cracked it with two crossers and a free O.
Nice to see him waving his bat for the ton.
Congrats to Monk on his ton! Was I the only one who first tentatively wrote REST CURE for 3D before light dawned?
Wellk done to Monkl! And it isa supern offering.
Cheers
Eowly.
No, nmsindy, you weren’t.
Glad to see I wasn’t the only one staring for ages at numerous clues before the pennies dropped only to wonder how it took me so long.
Well, I didn’t spot the Nina. 🙁
Needed a lot of help to finish this.
Well, I spotted the nina from the double z, but it didn’t help much as I couldn’t make out what the bottom row was meant to be. Only when I got my LoI, MALVOLIO, did I realise it was two words.
Anyway, thanks, Monk and John.
Well too clever for me today couldn’t get sw corner. Nice milestone for monk although since he uses the same moniker everywhere it does seem like more. Thanks john I’d have had trouble blogging this one.
This is the sort of puzzle that gives setters a bad name. Words such as “quaternion” and “zuegma” are obscure to the point of being invisible to anyone who doesn’t carry around the complete OED in their pocket; Given the explanations above on how to parse the former it isn’t even particularly accessible from the convoluted clue structure. I can’t find any reference to escalope as a shellfish (presumably some form of scallop) and plaque does not have any effect on one’s sense of taste – though perhaps it might contribute to bad breath.
If that wasn’t enough it was all wrapped up in a glorious piece of self-indulgence. Yuk.
And no, I couldn’t finish it.
@M1234 – that’s rather harsh. You need to try harder – and you should know that the byline Monk on a puzzle means: Don’t expect to complete this on your morning train commute – well not unless you live in Vladivostok and commute to Moscow.
Look at Rowland – only a year ago he told us:
“I usually complete the Guardian each day, while the Indy and Times very often beat me, or take a long time.”
and yet he had no complaints about this one – although I agree – obscurities are better avoided unless the wordplay makes them obvious – at least in a midweek puzzle.
Up to his old tricks with 2d – similar to “variously and intermittently” from a little while back. Imagine if Big A or Rufus ran a clue like that. The ximtrollfest would be on for young and old. I sometimes wonder whether Monk runs clues like that just to mock the ximtrolls – maths prof – so they don’t dare to take him on.
Anyway a great puzzle – take away the nina and it’s pure cluing that makes it what it is – and if this indeed is #100 then many thanks to Monk for all the fun thus far.
Not Rufus – I meant Gordius.
My favourite clues were 24a, 21a, 4d, 10a, 18d.
New words for me were ZEUGMA, ODENSE, QUATERNION.
I managed to parse 13d, but could not find the definition.
Thanks for the blog, John. I needed your help to parse 15d, 8d, 6d. Of these, I like MALVOLIO a lot.
Congratulations to Monk on his ton. BTW, I did not spot the nina or the pangram…..
Mozzie1234@17 We also had problems with 6d. We wanted to put in ESCALOPE last night but couldn’t see why. When we completed the puzzle this morning and found that it ended in S because we solved 15ac, we checked in Chambers and ‘lo and behold’ if you take the last E off it is a shellfish!
We thought it was a great puzzle, so congratulations and thanks to Monk. Yes, we did think it a toughie but that’s what we come to expect and look forward to on a Thursday. We really liked the SODIUM NITRATE clue although it took a while to parse but brought a smile when it did!
We saw the nina but for a while we thought Monk had missed the pangram as we coudn’t find an F!
Thanks John for the blog. We needed to check the definition for 13d and still couln’t understand it until we came to the blog.
Thanks also to Eimi for putting the two puzzles together as well as the snippet of information linking the two setters!
I quickly wrote in REST CURE for 3d (having momentarily toyed with FAST FILM, but decided it sounded very dated), and that held me up for a long time. I still think it’s a better answer.
Belated thanks to John for blog and to all those who expressed such +ve comments and good wishes on the ton-up. There probably aren’t enough years left for me to catch up my old French teacher, to whom many congrats.
The Ximtrollfest is on for Swagman, who invented it, and who makes the rules for it without understanding either the difference between Ximenean and non-Ximenean clues, or (judging by his previous appearances in debate) how clues work in a general way. So I think we (people who like fair clues, Swagman’s ‘Ximpedants’, the rude little sh*t) should relax.
There’s nothing wrong with 2 dn clue that I can see, by the way, so what exactly is it that bothers you so much about it? What possible problem do you suppose anyone could have with it?