Not an easy end to the week……
.
We needed help with some unfamiliar definitions during the solve. Thankfully there were some easier clues to get us started and towards the end we realised that there was something going on in the perimeter. There is a repetition of a three letter word which in three cases make another word but along the bottom there is only a repeat of THE. However, we need some help with 21d.
Many thanks to Monk for the challenge. Apologies for failing at the last hurdle with 21d – let’s hope someone else knows the answer.
| ACROSS | ||
| 7 | Author‘s position about play (7) | |
| TOLSTOY | SLOT (position) reversed or ‘about’ TOY (play) | |
| 8 | Leap by black fighter (4,3) | |
| JUMP JET | JUMP (leap) JET (black) | |
| 10 | Grieg opera superficially composed around piano chord (8) | |
| ARPEGGIO | An anagram of GRIEG O |
|
| 11 | Monk et al. force prickly shrubs to be dead-headed (6) | |
| FRIARS | F (force) |
|
| 12 | Paul‘s men touring continually (6) | |
| REVERE | RE (men) around or ‘touring’ EVER (continually). The answer refers to THIS American. | |
| 13 | Mo scoffing back first-class trifles (8) | |
| MINUTIAE | MINUTE (mo) around or ‘scoffing’ AI (first class) reversed or ’back’ | |
| 14 | Former president getting paper’s gossip (4,9) | |
| BUSH TELEGRAPH | BUSH (former president) TELEGRAPH (paper) | |
| 17 | Also sign to enter party — cheers (6-2) | |
| TOODLE-OO | TOO (also) + LEO (sign) inside DO (party) | |
| 20 | Ignoring ruin, reputation damaged in China? (3-3) | |
| TEA POT | An anagram of rEPuTATiOn without ruin – anagrind is ‘damaged’ | |
| 22 | Alongside current that has run eastwards (6) | |
| ABOARD | ABROAD (current) with R (run) moved eastwards. We solved this from the crossing letters and definition and were surprised that ABROAD and CURRENT are synonyms. | |
| 23 | Briefly covers first son’s remains (8) | |
| SUBSISTS | SUBS (briefly covers) IST (first) S (son). Another one where we needed to check the definition although this time we solved it from the word play. | |
| 24 | Transport runs by unopened land (7) | |
| RAPTURE | R (runs) |
|
| 25 | Teachers examine crank (7) | |
| NUTCASE | NUT (teachers) CASE (examine) | |
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | Working capital advances male film star (6) | |
| MONROE | ON (working) ROME (capital) with M (male) moved forward or ‘advancing’ | |
| 2 | Haggard heroine among users, deployed as female escort (8) | |
| USHERESS | SHE (Haggard heroine) inside an anagram of USERS –anagrind is ‘deployed’ | |
| 3 | The most brutish thug heading off to stop all others (8) | |
| ROUGHEST | ||
| 4 | Almost messing up breadcake (6) | |
| MUFFIN | MUFFIN |
|
| 5 | Raising pitiful bum after I left (6) | |
| UPLIFT | An anagram of P |
|
| 6 | By rolling up part of joint, incur disgrace (8) | |
| REPROACH | PER (by) reversed or ‘up’ ROACH (part of joint – the ‘fag end’). Joyce was not aware that PER could mean BY. For regular readers of our blogs it was another one of those occasions when she was made aware that ‘it came from the Latin’. Neither of us were aware that a roach was the end of joint! | |
| 9 | Extremely lithe mesomorph moving around on this? (6,5) | |
| POMMEL HORSE | An anagram of L |
|
| 14 | Rank secured by Black and Tan boss (8) | |
| BROWBEAT | ROW (rank) inside or ‘secured by’ B (black) and BEAT (tan) | |
| 15 | Travel as boxing promoters should do? (3,5) | |
| GET ABOUT | A play on GET A BOUT which is presumably what boxing promoters do for their money | |
| 16 | Adult and child netting easy goal if necessary (2,1,5) | |
| AT A PINCH | A (adult) CH (child) around or ‘netting’ TAP IN (easy goal) | |
| 18 | Want to contribute to avante-garde art history (6) | |
| DEARTH | Hidden in or ‘contributing to’ avante-gardDE ART History | |
| 19 | Last exposure and future picture do this (6) | |
| ENDURE | A play on the fact that both picture and future both END in URE | |
| 21 | Blunt object with section cut near end (6) | |
| OBTUSE | Well…….. OB can be objection (not object) according to Chambers and S can be section and there’s CUT backwards without C. Looking at it again after the blog was up, could it possibly be OBT with jec removed (section cut) and END (use)? All very obtuse we feel! | |
Another very enjoyable Monk crossword. Spotted the Nina which helped a little. By the way ‘The The’ is the name of a band. Favourite clues include: ENDURE, POMMEL HORSE (clever anagram), GET ABOUT and also RAPTURE for its misleading use of ‘transport’ and ‘land’. I stared at 21d for ages, assuming I was missing something obvious then decided to come here for clarification. Ah well, it’s nice to know it’s not just me.
Thanks B&J
I parsed 21dn as – OB[jec]T (object with section cut) USE (end) – but I don’t know if this is correct, though I cannot think of any other possibility. USE=’end’ can be confirmed in Chambers Thesaurus.
I guess ‘end’ as in ‘to what end’ can be taken as ‘use’. That just leaves ‘near’ to mean ‘by’ as an indication to tag it onto obt. That’ll do until anybody can improve the parsing.
Always great to see Monk and I was thankful to have a nina to shoehorn the last couple in.
Interesting nina as the top row could read RUM twice or MURMUR which of course was REM not THE THE.
Also TSETSE could be EST EST but it probably needs a third to become an obscure Italian wine (obscure to me at least)
And I did like the Greig Opera
Thanks B&J, Gaufrid and Monk.
Always a treat to see Monk; I’d never have finished this without the Nina, and frankly I had to guess at that a bit.
If I may say so, dear B&J, your pre-amble is a tad spoilery.
Apologies baerchen – we thought we had added enough extra lines so only the first words were vsible. Will add some more when we can.
baerchen @5
Thanks for the heads-up. For some reason (probably the very short first paragraph) the WordPress plugin that adds the ‘more’ tag didn’t do so, which meant that the second paragraph was also displayed on the home page. I have now manually rectified this.
Thanks Gaufrid – we crossed!
Thanks B&J for the parsing of 19d which I missed.
Thanks monk, lots to like, I enjoyed Grieg, monk et al, TEA POT, MUFFIN, the lithe mesomorph, and more.
Doh, didn’t spot the Nina despite the grid
Bit late to the party today, but thought this was a really nicely pitched Saturday puzz for the reasons B&J mentioned. Lots to get one into the puzzle and then the difficulty gradually cranked up. In the end I missed 4 or 5 clues, but my honours go to the solve as a whole. Many thanks to The Brother for the puzzle and to B&J for the enlightenment.