Independent Saturday Prize 9087 Monk 28/11/15

24 comments on “Independent Saturday Prize 9087 Monk 28/11/15”

1. This grid screams Nina or some other dastardly devilish Monkish device and although I see the word “bead” twice in the perimeter I can’t figure out what it means. If someone can put me out of my misery, I’ll be grateful.
   Thanks to Monk as ever for some fantastic clues, thanks to B&J and best wishes to J’s dad

2. Thanks bearchen – Joyce’s father is doing OK and is remarkably cheerful with the nurses – for a change!

   Yes, we thought nina or theme too but couldn’t find anything apart from BEAD for a nina. There’s GROOVE and B-SIDES but that’s about it for a record theme.

3. Thanks B&J and Monk. Good fun. I’m never any good at Ninas but I think 4a is (M)ATE(S) + LIE-R (one who lies – “flat one”). Usual accurate clue-ing from Monk, so I was able to enter ESNE fairly confidently, even though I’d never come across the word before.

4. Thanks MikeC – we think you are correct with 4ac.

5. re 4 across it is MATES discovered so without the covers so ATE plus LIER which is one lying down so a flat one. Think it should be uncovered really !

6. Sorry Mike – we crossed while typing !

7. Many thanks for puzzle and blog. I always look for Monk’s signing off as it were but could only see “bead-g ” twice and FC-not in any league I know of.

8. Thanks Monk and B&J

   I think the Nina is musical, and covers the twelve notes of the chromatic scale in cyclic order. Going clockwise involves going up a fifth or moving to the dominant key (add one sharp to, or subtract one flat from, the key signature). On the bottom line there is an enharmonic switch from B to G flat (same note as F sharp), and the NW corner goes from B flat to F.

9. Thanks Pelham Barton – no wonder we didn’t spot it! We think we’ll have to carry out some more research to understand your explanation.

10. For CGDAEB etc see Wikipedia: Cycle of fifths

    Re 18a: Please what is the definition? I had a vague feeling that “does one” might mean “do a runner”, ie abscond, but again couldn’t verify this in Chambers.

11. @Pelham Barton- thanks
    …believe it or not, I had clocked that the perimeter letters were musical notes but couldn’t see the significance. A Monk prize always makes me quaver

12. Thanks for the link AndrewW. ‘Do one’ is in Chamber’s Thesaurus under absconds.

13. I didn’t do the puzzle, but just to confuse B&J further, Father Christmas Goes Downstairs And Eats Biscuits.

14. Thanks to B&J for blog and to all for comments. AndrewW@10 has it: it is indeed the circle of 5ths and, in the solution grid originally submitted, the “B” to the north-east of each of the (anticlockwise, from the north-west) peripheral B, E, A, D and G was entered as a “b”, to indicate the flats 🙂

15. KD@13 … you entered as I was typing! I (only recently) learnt this as “Father Christmas gave dad an electric blanket“, the flat-notes section being “blanket exploded and dad groaned“.

16. I know it as Frederick Charles Goes Down And Ends Battles.

    Failed with 19dn – I guessed SLAG as in a slagheap, and “gals” backwards. Also couldn’t parse 4ac so thanks for that. The parsing of 21ac eluded me for a while.

17. That’s obviously the more modern version, Monk, but it’s a good mnemonic. G flat with six flats sounds extremely scary. But I’m a guitarist (of no note), so flats of any description are scary. That’s what capos are for.

18. Took me a while to sort this out as I’d mis-entered 18A as ABALONES – it seemed a clumsy clue, but ‘one sailor’ as ‘AB alone’, followed by start to spot, surely couldn’t have been coincidental, or so I told myself…. 1D and 8A also sat waiting for me to find them for quite some time.

    Thanks to B&J and to Monk – I should know by now that clumsy clues are not going to feature.

19. They could have been chords but not in the Beatles or Who songbooks.
    Thanks Monk.

20. KD@19: I learnt this circle in order to determine immediately which “harp” (with quotes, a diatonic harmonica, my weapon of choice) to pick up when others play in a given key. So you guitarists add a capo, while we change harps. For example, band in C means harpist (always in C) on: C harp (“1st position”, e.g. folk, rock, ballads); F harp (“2nd position”, or “cross harp”, e.g. major blues & swing); Bb harp (“3rd position”, e.g. minor blues & swing). The harp sequence C, F, Bb goes anticlockwise on the circle of fifths.

    The harp technique in each position is vastly different and, as a rough indication: beginners learn 1st; intermediates add 2nd; advanced players add 3rd; experts add 4th and 5th, which require as-yet-unmentioned techniques to play the full scales. The more positions you can play, the more keys you can play on a single harp! That said, 2nd and 3rd are probably the most popular.

21. Well that’s sorted that out now!?

22. With a chromatic harmonica (like Max Geldray used) you wouldn’t need to change instrument. Or am I missing something.

    K’s D @17, multiple sharps and flats are only scary to read, not to play. Chopin used to start his piano students in B and E, because they fit the hand better.

    And the great jazz pianist Barry Harris once told me C was the hardest key fro a piano player because of the flat topology.

    Back under my stone now.

23. Conrad@22, you’re not missing anything: you don’t need to change (chromatic) harmonicas but you do need to change (diatonic) harps. Although the latter can be “partially chromaticised” using (advanced) “overblow” techniques, even when experts do so, the overblows never sound quite right. So, on occasion, e.g. when playing blues in D, I’ll align a G (in 2nd pos) immediately below a C (in 3rd pos) because the natural/bent notes on the C harp sound much cleaner than the overblown notes on the G harp. I’m no musician, BTW, just a harp aficionado.

24. Thanks Monk.

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