Independent 9111 by Monk

by

Oh dear, I thought Monday was supposed to be a nice gentle day here at the Indy, Wot’s Monk doing here??

 

Maybe not all of this is as hard as Monk can be but bits are certainly a tad convoluted. Monk often (usually?) has some sort of Nina in the grid but it’s passed whooshing over my head if there is one.

Nice and peaceful here at flashling towers after a weekend of being entertained by tantrum throwing grandchildren, hope your Christmas wasn’t ruined by flooding.

Across

9 In many cases, decimal? (5)
OFTEN

Decimal is OF TEN

10 Pole in a European capital finding where Lancaster was located? (9)
AERODROME

ROD (pole) in A & E(uropean) & ROME (capital) whimsical def re Lancaaster bombers

11 Caught extremely brutal and cold criminal’s accessory (6,3)
CLUTCH BAG

[CAUGHT B(ruta)L C(old)]* criminally

12 About to interrupt display of humour in pub (5)
LOCAL

C(irc)A inside L.O.L. (laughing out loud)

13 Magnate wants grand invested in curtailed model (5)
MOGUL

G(rand) inside MOUL(d)

14 Laziness or rudeness involving daughter rather than son (9)
INDOLENCE

D(aughter) replacing S(on) in INSOLENCE

16 Alliance about to split staff and divide completely (4-3-6)
ROOT-AND-BRANCH

ROD returns it seems. NATO (alliance) reversed inside ROD (staff) & BRANCH (divide)

21 Precedes new updates? See about that (5,2,2)
LEADS UP TO

UPDATES* in a new state inside LO (see)

23 Passage about university examination (5)
AUDIT

U(ni) inside ADIT (a mine entrance) Used to see ADIT a lot 20 odd years ago in crosswordland, not seen this old friend for a while

25 Endlessly backing seminal film genre (5)
ANIME

(s)EMINA(l) endlessly reversed

27 Half of Beethovens lost in post, causing hitch (5-4)
SHEET-BEND

half of [BEETH(ovens)]* lost inside SEND (post), it’s a type of knot

28 Fled from small nit-picker, one who makes changes (9)
SCARPERED

S(mall) & CARPER (complainer) & ED(itor), a sly dig at Eimi?

29 To some extent, Diana Spencer was shy (5)
ASPEN

A hidden answer, took a while to twig (!) this one as I only really knew it as a tree. The trembling poplar gives its name to being timorous or shy

Down

1 Fop of ninety buried in valley (7)
COXCOMB

XC (90 Roman) in COMBE – a valley

2 Tied up, having grassed about leaders in train robbery (6)
STRUNG

T(rain) R(obbery) in SUNG (grassed)

3 Possibly gives a shot at stopping one changing counsel (10)
INOCULATES

AT inside 1 & COUNSEL* changing

4 Cox perhaps following river that’s English or Welsh (8)
CAMBRIAN

CAM (English river through Cambridge) & BRIAN (cox, professor/musician or actor take your pick)

5 After end of week, get over cold (6)
FRIGID

FRI(day) End of week?? Hmm, not really convinced about that, & DIG (get) reversed (over)

6 Hero left following declaration of union (4)
IDOL

I DO & L(eft)

7 Unstable old Liberal has power to cut almost all immorality (8)
VOLCANIC

O(ld) L(iberal) & CAN (has the power) all inside a shortened VIC(e)

8 Robustly constructed spring fixed in position (4-3)
WELL-SET

WELL (a spring) & SET (fixed)

15 Corrupt guide on a common (4,6)
LEAD ASTRAY

Monk does like to dig though dictionaries to get obscure meanings doesn’t he? LEAD (guide) & A & STRAY (a piece of common land)

17 Instruments caught in propeller only half explains churning (8)
OCARINAS

C(aught) in OAR (propeller) & half of (expl)AINS* churning

18 Ties worn by funny, topless kind of supporters? (4-4)

BOOK-ENDS

(j)OKE topless inside BONDS (ties)

19 Chancellor of the Exchequer protecting banks in purge (7)
CLEANSE

LEANS (banks like a plane) in C(hancellor of the) E(xchequer)

20 Trainee boss needs introduction to economics books (7)
STUDENT

STUD (a boss) & E(conomics) & N(ew) T(estament)

22 Dough or salary cut by 50% of 2 (6)
PASTRY

2dn = STRUNG so STR inside PAY (salary)

24 Choke on very soft cheese, finally getting port (6)
DIEPPE

A French Port. DIE (choke) & PP (very soft) & last letter (finally) of (chees)E

26 Spot one involved in cyber-intelligence? (4)

ESPY

Whimsically an E – SPY like E – mail

completed grid

9 comments on “Independent 9111 by Monk”

  1. Thanks Monk and flashling

    Seeing the possibility of MACHINE in column 14 helped me with 10ac and 16ac. I think the full Nina is three symmetrically placed columns.

    Small correction to the parsing of 1dn: XC in COOMB (not COMBE).

  2. I thought this was a pretty challenging start to the week. I hadn’t heard of a SHEET BEND (no hyphen in Chambers) nor of the use of ASPEN for ‘shy’. I liked OCARINAS (also in another place today), BOOK-ENDS and SCARPERED. As a complete troglodyte I had no idea what the Nina meant until a scholarly and exhaustive search of contemporary media, ie Google, explained all. I like the name of the group even if I don’t know the music.

    Thanks to Monk and flashling,

  3. Florence and the Machine was new to me but I saw something brewing and a quick google revealed- actually helped me get a couple which was useful as the print button seems to have disappeared.I must try You tube to see if they were any good- I dont think they had anything to do with the rest of the puzzle but I’ll be happy to be corrected.

  4. Quite pleasant. Just to be pedantic, in knots generally bends and hitches are not synonymous. Bends are for tying ropes together, hitches are for tying ropes round something.

  5. As far as I can see the aforementioned “act” has nothing in common with Monk’s puzzle- the latter is excellent.End of.

  6. Hmmm. Well, I got it all without fully understanding all the clues or spotting the nina, but it all felt a bit of an anticlimax when I finished. But I liked 10ac.

    Thanks, though, to Monk and flashling.

  7. copmus@3: The print button hasn’t disappeared. It’s now separate from the menu and alongside it, identified by a ‘printer’ icon.

  8. This took a long time to get into and I thought I was going to have to give up after getting only a half-dozen answers and grinding to a halt, but I got there eventually without any aids apart from looking the odd word up in Chambers, but I think this took more effort than yesterday’s Beelzebub.

  9. We started quickly and finished slowly! Some of the answers took longer to parse than usual but we got there in the end. Bert even spotted the group hiding in the grid so a good start to the week. We’ve still got yesterday’s Beelzebub to tackle so we will be interested to compare times after the comment by Dormouse@8.

    Thanks Monk and flashling.

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