Excellent as ever. On many of these clues the solution became apparent long before the explanation, there is one that still eludes me. Thank you Monk.
There is going to be something going on in the grid but I can’t spot what it is. For a long while I was trying to make the right-hand side read LAUTREC which prevented me from getting TINPOT as I was convinced the solution would end in U.
| Across | ||
| 8 | CALABRIA | Article in Le Monde dividing chaotic Arabic region (8) |
| LA (the in French, the definite article as written in Le Monde) in (dividing) anagram (chaotic) of ARABIC | ||
| 9 | NO-BALL | Extra VIP going ahead of everybody (2-4) |
| NOB (VIP) then ALL (everybody) – and extra in cricket | ||
| 10 | WALESA | Country beginning to accept former labour leader (6) |
| WALES (country) then Accept (beginning letter of) – Lech Walesa, Polish labour leader | ||
| 11 | UNDERSEA | Trained end user with a submarine (8) |
| anagram (trained) of END USER with A | ||
| 12 | BOAT DECK | Hold below this scarf, taking time to dress (4,4) |
| BOA (scarf) taking T (time) and DECK (to dress) | ||
| 13 | TINPOT | Inferior cast accepting rejected work (6) |
| TINT (cast, of colour) contains (accepting) OP (opus, work) reversed (rejected) | ||
| 14 | PROVERB | Saw book by good mathematician? (7) |
| B (book) following (by) PROVER (good mathematician, someone who proves conjectures) | ||
| 17 | ADAMANT | Set by 80s post-punk musician (7) |
| 1980s post-punk musician ADAM ANT | ||
| 20 | SCYLLA | Monster, in seconds, caught friend from behind (6) |
| S (seconds) C (caught) then ALLY (friend) reversed (from behind) | ||
| 22 | THATCHER | Former number one in the chart following remix (8) |
| anagram (following remix) of THE CHART – Margaret Thatcher, former number one in the UK government | ||
| 25 | ACID RAIN | Announced check on drug problem for the environment? (4,4) |
| RAIN sounds like (announced) rein (check) following (on) ACID (drug) | ||
| 26 | TOWNIE | Keep stopping to oblige non- student (6) |
| OWN (keep) inside (stopping, like a cork) TIE (to oblige) | ||
| 27 | NEED-BE | Half of unnecessary workers maybe cut as a necessity (4-2) |
| NEEDless BEes (unnecessary workers) when half of the letters may be cut | ||
| 28 | ESOTERIC | Mysterious sea-scouts regularly spotted west of Morecambe (8) |
| sEa ScOuTs (regularly selected) before (see left of, spotted west of) ERIC (Eric Morcambe) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | NAVAJO | Native American turned up, working round island (6) |
| ON (working) containing (around) JAVA (island) | ||
| 2 | MAZELTOV | Complex officer getting over very good luck (8) |
| MAZE (complex) LT (lieutenant, officer) O (over) V (very) | ||
| 3 | CREATE | Porsche finally stopping old car design (6) |
| porchE (final letter of) inside (stopping like a cork again) CRATE (old car) | ||
| 4 | MAZURKA | Note sent round unknown university before a dance (7) |
| MARK (note) containing (sent round) Z (unknown) U (university) then A | ||
| 5 | UNEDITED | Entire football team extremely excited to be included (8) |
| UNITED (football team) containing (…to be included) ExciteD (extreme letters of) | ||
| 6 | OBERON | Medal possibly trendy for king of literature (6) |
| OBE (medal) with RON (?) – Oberon is a king in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. |
||
| 7 | BLUE MOON | Dismal exhibit behind rare event (4,4) |
| BLUE (dismal) with MOON (exhibit one’s behind) | ||
| 15 | RICOCHET | Company cutting almost all wealth needing time to bounce back (8) |
| CO (company) inside (cutting) RICHEs (wealth, almost all of) then T (time) | ||
| 16 | REAL ALES | What might confuse AA seller? (4,4) |
| anagram (what might confuse) of AA SELLER – definition is &lit | ||
| 18 | MICAWBER | Wife born in America almost changed character (8) |
| W (wife) and B (Born) in anagram (changed) of AMERICa (almost all of) – character from Dickens | ||
| 19 | STANLEY | Traveller’s type of knife (7) |
| double definition – colonial explorer and make of craft knife | ||
| 21 | LA-DIDA | Snooty boy and girl (2-2-2) |
| LAD (boy) and IDA (girl) | ||
| 23 | ACTION | Lawsuit in France taken out of proportion (6) |
| frACTION (proportion) missing (with…taken out of) FR (France) | ||
| 24 | ELICIT | Obtain delight when naked (6) |
| fELICITy (delight) missing outside letters (naked) | ||
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.
Hard and very satisfying, particularly the top left corner. RON is right on.
Thanks Monk, Peedee
Thanks Peedee for parsing of NEED BE which I didnt manage.I considered READ ME by taking out half the letters of REDUNTANT MEN out-but not quite in the right order
Great puzzle as usual from Monk-spent a while trying to find his trademark but no luck.
And thanks Monk.
Tricky but very satisfying. Thank you to Monk and PeeDee
Clutching at straws (or Ninas) Can I ask if our setter knows someone called BRIAN (middle of row 2) SAAUNDERS (middle of row 4) who is INTO (middle row 12) BEES (middle row 14) ??
Or SAUNDERS 🙂
I’m sure Monk knows Finbar Saunders very well. You may be on to something there.
@CS, brilliant! http://www.raintownbees.ca/our-story/
Thank you James – that’s very interesting – I only noticed the BEES bit to start with as Mr CS is also ‘into bees’
I find that Nina delightfully pointless. And it will be missed by the entire solving population outside 225. But I am still glad that he (Monk) does it.
Thank you Monk and PD.
Really struggled with this and needed aids for two or three clues. I also failed to get RON as right on. Note that 4d is missing the Z (unknown) in blog.
Thanks to Monk and PeeDee.
Another Monk-wrangle. I like the cluing style though. It’s thorny.
As usual, just think of any Nina as an invisible seed for the puzzle — which is why I truly love Crimper@8‘s bang-on-the-money summary: utter pointlessness is the dream goal of any of my Ninas 🙂
(Canadian bee-keeper, bagpipe-player and all-round good egg) Brian and I became buddies on my wonderful trip to the tiny Orcadian island of North Ronaldsay for its 2017 Sheep Festival. Why? A group of conservation-minded volunteers travelled from around the world and gathered (at non-trivial personal expense!) to undertake 2 weeks of gruelling work repairing totally destroyed dry-stone sea dykes to their original glory. To while away the evenings in so remote a place, we drank [in the only bar], played [Gaelic and blues] music and listened to learned lectures from those present — his was on bee-keeping!
PS characteristically great/informative blog from PeeDee 😉
Didn’t finish this but am so glad I read the blog with the nina discovery and Monk providing the back story. I feel it wouldn’t be worth posting on the Guardian blog that this blog is worth reading even if they didn’t do the puzzle. Thanks to all.
It’s probably too late to matter now but I did of course mean to write WOULD not wouldn’t be worth posting elsewhere.
WhiteKing@14 — Ta muchly for reassurance — I did wonder! You caused a bit of a buzz there … 😉 BTW I also learned on North Ronaldsay that common seals were (at dusk) partial to acoustic-harmonica blues: I couldn’t be 100% sure, but I felt that the Chicago style amassed a bigger audience than the Mississippi delta style.
Thanks Monk and PeeDee
Late to post here – did do this one closer to publish time but didn’t get the chance to comment at the time and it got buried …
Found it challenging and wouldn’t have had a clue to the ghost theme – well spotted to those who could at least find the name – was interesting to read up on him. Also missed the parsing of RON in OBERON.
A good mix of clue type and a couple of new words in MAZELTOV and TOWNIE. Thought that NAVAJO was the best of a good bunch.