I found this tricky and for I while I thought I might not even finish. Thanks to Monk for another fine mental workout.
I can’t find anything hidden in the grid. There usually is something.
Thanks to crypticsue who points out that the grid contains various sorts of twins.
| Across | ||
| 1 | PIPIT | Narrowly defeat Italian for a lark (5) |
| PIP (narrowly defeat) IT (Italian) | ||
| 4 | CIGARETTE | Name short boy trapped inside smoke (9) |
| CITE (name) contains (with…traped inside) GARETh (boy, short) | ||
| 9 | IDENTICAL | Same or different in dialect (9) |
| anagram (different) of IN DIALECT | ||
| 10 | FAITH | Agree to include dealer’s third heroin conviction (5) |
| FIT (agree) contains (to include) deAler (third letter of) and H (heroin) | ||
| 11 | SIAMESE | Uniform worn by one extremely statuesque queen? (7) |
| SAME (unifoem) contains (is worn by) I (on) then StatuesquE – a queen is a female cat | ||
| 12 | AEROSOL | Greek god told to remove lining on a cloud? (7) |
| EROS (Greek god) woth tOLd (with lining removed) all following (on) A | ||
| 13 | DISCOUNTENANCE | Look unfavourably on refund with remorse after penny has dropped (14) |
| DISCOUNT (refund) with pENNANCE (remorse) missing P (penny) | ||
| 17 | HUMAN GUINEA PIG | Dreadful hang-up, imagine, about university’s experimental subject (5,6,3) |
| anagram (dreadful) of HANG-UP IMAGINE cintaining (about) U (university) | ||
| 21 | MILFOIL | Plant originally found on Iceland kept in box (7) |
| first letters (originally) of Found On Iceland inside (kept in) MILL (box, either a snuff box or to beat severely) | ||
| 23 | GO TO POT | Aim to extend break or become ruined (2,2,3) |
| cryptic/double definition – extend a break in snooker | ||
| 25 | SCRAN | Run inside to inspect food (5) |
| R (run) inside SCAN (to inspect) | ||
| 26 | FRATERNAL | Female singer backing way to restrict right of society men? (9) |
| F (female) RAT (singer, one talks to police) LANE (way) reversed (backing) contains (to restrict) R (right) | ||
| 27 | NOMADISED | Do maidens get aroused or unsettled? (9) |
| anagram (get aroused) of DO MAIDENS | ||
| 28 | YAHOO | Swift creature loves to go on grass, rolling over (5) |
| O O (loves, zero tennis scores) on HAY (grass) all reversed (rolling over) – Jonathan Swift character | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | PRIEST | Father Ted at first undermining peers (6) |
| Ted (first letter of) under (undermining) PRIES (peers) | ||
| 2 | PRELATISM | Episcopacy founded by Templar is unorthodox (9) |
| anagram (unorthodox) of TEMPLAR IS | ||
| 3 | TITHE | Chief regularly putting idiot on duty (5) |
| cHiEf (regular selection) following (putting on, with…on top) TIT (idiot) | ||
| 4 | COCTEAU | Film maker once picked up bird, on pull (7) |
| COC TEAU sounds like (picked up) “cock tow” (bird on pull) – Jean Cocteau, French film maker | ||
| 5 | GALLANT | Cavalier ill-will shown over worker (7) |
| GALL (ill-will) on (shown over) ANT (a worker ant herhaps) | ||
| 6 | REFERENDA | Whistle-blower perhaps stopped early and tampered with votes (9) |
| REFEREe (whistle blower perhaps) missing final letter (stopped early) then anagram (tampered with) of AND | ||
| 7 | TWINS | Can circumventing wife lead to sneaky doubles (5) |
| TIN (can) contains (circumventing, going around) W (wife) Sneaky (leading letter of) | ||
| 8 | ETHELRED | Woman concerned about daughter who avoided confrontation? (8) |
| ETHEL (a woman) RE (regarding, concerned about) D (daughter). I can’t explain the definition, unless it refers to “Ethelred the Unready”. As far as I know he didn’t avoid confrontation and his name means Ethelread the “ill advised”, a pun on the actual meaning of his name which is “well advised”. Can anyone help out with any confrontation avoiders? | ||
| 14 | CONJOINED | United deceived judge over one on the inside (9) |
| CONNED (deceived) contains (with…on eh inside) J (judge) O (over) I (one) | ||
| 15 | NAIL PUNCH | Secure mixed drink – one will get hammered (4,5) |
| NAIL (secure) PUNCH (mixed drink) | ||
| 16 | THOMPSON | Actress not caught in time bites leg (7) |
| T (time) cHOMPS (bites) ON (leg side, in cricket) missing C (caught) – Emma Thompson | ||
| 18 | UPLIFTS | Picks up setter’s employer in posh fancy slip (7) |
| FT (the setter’s employer) in U (posh) with anagram (fancy) of SLIP | ||
| 19 | NIGGARD | Almost pulling up tightwad (7) |
| DRAGGINg (pulling almost) reversed (up) | ||
| 20 | STALKO | Follow old Irish vagrant (6) |
| STALK (follow) O (old) | ||
| 22 | LARUM | Warning – adult rook trapped in local chimney (5) |
| A (adult) R (rook, chess) inside (trapped in) LUM (chimney, local = in dialect) | ||
| 24 | TEENY | Very small state overwhelmed by support (5) |
| NY (New York, state) under (overwhelmed by) TEE (support) | ||
definitions are underlined
I write these posts to help people get started with cryptic crosswords. If there is something here you do not understand ask a question; there are probably others wondering the same thing.
What a lot of 7d – 9a, 11a, 26a, 4d, 14d and 16d
Thank you for the brain stretching to Monk and Season’s Greetings to both him and PeeDee too
Yet again, I failed to spot the theme. Failed to get STALKO, a new word for me. Had to guess MILFOIL and then check it was a plant and that ‘mill’ could mean ‘box’. I don’t think ‘refund’ and ‘discount’ are synonymous (and my Chambers thesaurus doesn’t list them as such) but I could be wrong. My favourite clue was for SIAMESE. Always enjoy a Monk, so thanks to S&B.
Great from Monk-er looks like I typed CIGARETTE!(I’m hopeless at typing)
Thanks Monk, Pee Dee and crypticsue for twins.
Thank you compus, it took me a while to figure out where you were going there but fixed now!
Top quality puzzle but then it’s Monk so expected no less. Thanks for blog PeeDee.
One of the tougher Monk puzzles I have done in recent times.
As always (yes: always) high quality but, while I know that there’s always something going in Monk’s crosswords, the theme completely passed me by. That said, nice to see both the Cocteau Twins and the Thompson Twins make it to the final.
I couldn’t explain AEROSOL (12ac), as I was focused on AEROS being the homophone of ‘Eros’, but it’s a really clever clue now that I see how it works.
Thanks PeeDee for a colourful blog and Monk for the (challenging) fun.
Far too tough. So much so that it’s really pissed me off.
I thought this was too difficult, too. I got about 6 clues before referring to this blog – and was then banging my head on my desk soon thereafter.
Do setters write clues like 21ac just to wind solvers up, I wonder?
Jo and Ludwig, out of curiosity only, is it that you think the FT should never publish difficult puzzles? I often see easier puzzles published in the FT. Should it be that the FT only publishes puzzles that everyone who takes the paper can always solve?
Hi PeeDee, I look at the FT crossword most days when I have time, and in that context I found this at the very extreme end of the difficulty scale.
I love the entertainment of a good cryptic solve, but when setting becomes as extreme as 21 & 22 are in this crossword it ceases to be fun.
I’m grateful that you and others take the trouble to write these blogs btw. Without them, some clues would remain a mystery to almost everyone else I suspect!
Thanks for that Ludwig. I found this hard too. Way back when I started blogging on this site Monk used to be the hardest setter in the FT. In answer to your question at @8 I think back then Monk did set out to be hard, though not I think just to wind people up. The difficulty was sometimes a result of the fiendishly clever Ninas his puzzles used to contain. A year or two ago he told me that he had deliberately toned down the level of difficulty so that his puzzles would be more widely accessible. I have certainly noticed that since then that his puzzles, while not exactly easy, no longer require the lie down in a darkened room after solving, as long-time contributor crypticsue used to put it. I imagine that some of the clues in this puzzle were accidentally at the extreme end of FT difficulty scale rather than deliberately so.
Thanks Monk and PeeDee
Always enjoy this setter’s puzzles and although quite difficult and spanning across an elapsed couple of days to actually get it out, this was no different. The only issue is that one is usually so beggared to actually get the grid finished that there is little energy to go looking for the hidden theme that is almost always lurking in his crosswords.
A few new words – SCRAN, MILFOIL, STALKO and that meaning of ‘mill’. With ETHELRED, and only after reading about him in his Wiki article, I think that it refers to his policy of paying tributes to the Vikings rather than taking them on in battle for most of the time that he could be regarded as ‘avoiding confrontation’.
A great effort to get all of those TWINS into the grid.
Only just discovered that this was recently published: one never knows in advance at the FT!
Apologies for once again straying into more difficult zones. But as PeeDee (superb blog as usual) mentions, I do now on the whole try to set much easier puzzles than hitherto — but that invited some bloggers to say “too easy”.
I’d not contest that tricky entries were here indeed forced in by the theme, inspired by not only my (still frequent) great appreciation of The 4dn 7dn but also by the fact that I/my father/maternal grandfather are/were/were respectively 9ac/25ac/25ac 7dn.
Season’s greetings to all bloggers, and a happy and healthy 2018.