Financial Times 15,333 by MONK

13 comments on “Financial Times 15,333 by MONK”

1. Echoing Peedee – ‘Thanks Monk for another super puzzle’…and a pangram to boot.

   Many great clues – I especially enjoyed 15ac, and 5d with the cheeeky capitalisation of Cliff making me think that Summer Holiday had something to do with the answer!

2. The Private Eye editor at 8a was actually RICHARD rather than Bernard

   I’ve had the most lovely time working away at the clues in between doing odd bits of the day job. Lots of sneakiness adding to the enjoyment factor ‘Channel Island’ being my biggest d’oh moment.

   Thanks to PeeDee and Monk – if there is a Nina, as usual I can’t see it.

3. Thanks crypticsue – Bernard Ingham/Richard Ingram. I’m always getting these two names confused.

4. Wonderful GK. Binned.

5. Wonderful GK.

6. Thanks Monk and PeeDee

   I thoguth that was fairly chewy, but got there in the end, helped by a couple of lucky guesses which turned out to work.

   Incidentally, my parsing of SELADANG was G(o)NADS around (external to) ALE, all reversed (round) – otherwise there isn’t a reversal indicator.

7. Excellent puzzle, but a bit too hard for me. I very slowly ground out most of the answers but fell short at SELADANG and ALICE BAND, both of which were new. Yes, I liked the image of Cliff Richard singing SCARBOROUGH FAIR and among many others, SCHNAPPS also raised a smile.

   Thanks to PeeDee and Monk

8. Many thanks Pee Dee-I didnt envy anyone having to blog this.Managed to complete it but the blog helped plug a few parsing problems. i got islington but still dont quite equate the def.And of course missed the pangram. I should have known as i checked so thoroughly for something extra (nina wise)
   A great Monk puzzle.

9. Simon S – indeed, I omitted the reversal indicator. Fixed now.

10. I thought 6dn’s definition might have been a reference to Islington’s postcode as N1 (none). Not being a Londoner, I wasn’t sure if that was, in fact, the case.

11. Well done stuartr! Islington is in the N1 postal district. This is certainly the best explanation.

12. Thanks Monk and PeeDee

    This was certainly a tough test – a mix of new general knowledge requirements, some convoluted charade parsing and some clever misdirection.

    Didn’t properly parse SCARBOROUGH FAIR (didn’t get away from seeing SCAR as the personal problem … ) or ISLINGTON (that was extremely difficult – had to unravel the wordplay to get N1, know it was the postcode of it and for we foreigners even know of the place at all).

    Thought that SELADANG and LUNDY were both very good clues.

    Finished with BENZYL (tough), that LUNDY and INGRAM (needed digital help both with the old term for an ‘ignorant person’ and the editor of Private Eye – actually not sure how many folk would know either of them, let alone both of them !)

13. Hi Bruce – on its own I would argue using postal codes in wordplay is clearly unfair, just about any combination of letters will be a postal code somewhere.  I think the redeeming feature is that some postal codes especially some London ones have a social significance beyond their use in delivering letters.  EC of The City of London is an obvious example – a financial district and hence money, wealth greed etc.  N1 and Islington are less obvious but convey a cosmopolitan literary-elite connotation, usually with a somewhat critical overtone: wealthy middle-class people professing socialist beliefs but leading an expensive and faddish lifestyle.

    Do some postcodes have such a significance is Australia too?

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