Monk provides the Thursday challenge in this week’s Independent series.
Monk has obviously reached a landmark in his setting career and I’m guessing he has set 150 (CL in Roman numerals) Independent puzzles but I am not certain of this. The unchecked letters in the top and bottom rows spell out PUZZLE BY MONK while all the across entries beginning from the left hand edge start with C and all the across entries ending on the right edge finish with L. There are blogs of more than 200 puzzles by Monk on fifteensquared. Most are either Financial Times or Independent puzzles with a few Guardian Geniuses as well. The Independent seem to be in the majority which is why I’m guessing this is the 150th Indie puzzle by Monk.
I found this quite a challenging puzzle with a few less well known words. I have never come across LUBRIC before and both PRIAPIC, UMBILICI, OUTRIVAL and OOIDAL don’t feature in my vocabulary very often. Neither do PEDICAB and ZIPPERED. SARAWAK was not too difficult as I worked in Sabah the other Malaysian State on the island of Borneo for nearly two years..
I enjoyed many of the clues, favourites being those for JIMMY RIDDLE mainly because ‘wee’ is used frequently in Scotland rather than small LARRIKIN for it’s word picture and LEEWAY with is use of both latitude and longitude. I remember my mother telling me that she thought I would be happy with my wee car and my wee house just after I thought I had bought the best things I could afford at the time.
Monk makes significant use of reversals in this puzzle. I can’t recall a puzzle that I have blogged recently with nine reversals in the word play in just twenty six clues.
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| No | Clue | Wordplay | Entry |
| 7 | Lousy clubs introducing pack activity (6) |
C (clubs [in a pack of cards]) + RUMMY (card game; pack activity) C RUMMY |
CRUMMY (inferior; worthless; lousy) |
| 8 | Roll into examination in court (8) |
BUN (sweet roll) contained in (into) TRIAL (examination) TRI (BUN) AL |
TRIBUNAL (court of justice or arbitration) |
| 9 | Eccentric one wants only female underwear (8) |
CAM (irregular projection on a revolving shaft or rotating cylinder; ECCENTRIC is defined, as a noun, as a device for taking an alternating rectilinear motion from a revolving shaft) + I (Roman numeral for one) + SOLE (only) CAM I SOLE |
CAMISOLE (woman’s loose negligée or jacket) |
| 10 | A lot of extremely lamentable rubbish getting rejected (6) |
(LE [first and last letters {extremely} of LAMENTABLE] + CRAP [rubbish]) all reversed (getting rejected) (PARC EL)< |
PARCEL (a plot of land, also known as a lot) |
| 11 | Spot independent returning in poll banning US state members (8) |
(ZIT [spot] + I) reversed (returning) contained in (in) CENSUS (poll) excluding (banning) US C (I TIZ)< ENS |
CITIZENS (members of a state) |
| 12 | Bring back spun fabric in both hands (6) |
LACE (delicate ornamental fabric made by looping, knotting, plaiting or twisting threads into definite patterns) reversed (spun) contained in (in) (R [right hand] + L [left hand] giving both hands) R ECAL< L |
RECALL (bring back) |
| 13 | Wee puzzle set by unfamiliar Scotsman (5,6) |
JIMMY (informal Scottish term of address for a male stranger) + RIDDLE (puzzle) JIMMY RIDDLE |
JIMMY RIDDLE (urinate; wee) |
| 18 | Much wine – exceptionally clear bottles left (6) |
Anagram of (exceptionally) CLEAR and L (left) CELLAR* |
CELLAR (storage area for many bottles of wine; much wine) |
| 20 | Lesson hammered out amidst test (8) |
Anagram of (hammered) OUT contained in (amidst) TRIAL (test) T (UTO*) RIAL |
TUTORIAL (lesson) |
| 22 | Old statesman to boast briefly, suppressing reserve (6) |
CROW (boast) excluding the final letter (briefly) W containing (suppressing) ICE (reserve) C (ICE) RO |
CICERO (Marcus Tullius CICERO [106BC – 43BC] was a Roman statesman, orator, lawyer and philosopher, who served as consul in the year 63 BC) |
| 23 | Vital our slips seek a win more than others? (8) |
Anagram of (slips) VITAL OUR OUTRIVAL* |
OUTRIVAL (win more than others in the competition or in business for example) |
| 24 | Shell swiftly locked on vehicle (8) |
CAR (vehicle) + APACE (swiftly) CAR APACE |
CARAPACE (thick hard shell, made of bone or chitin, of the crab, tortoise, turtle, etc) |
| 25 | Papers are into where one can go around Oval? (6) |
(ID [identity papers] + A [are, a unit of area]) contained in (into) LOO (toilet, somewhere one can ‘go’) reversed (around) OO (ID A) L< |
OOIDAL (egg-shaped; oval) |
| Down | |||
| 1 | Pressure to publicise, backing movie about Shaft, say (7) |
P (pressure) + AIR (broadcast; publicise) reversed (backing) + PIC (picture; movie) P RIA< PIC |
PRIAPIC (of, relating to, exhibiting, etc a phallus [shaft]; about shaft) |
| 2 | Bulimic treated over single or multiple depressions (8) |
Anagram of (treated) BULIMIC + I (Roman numeral for one; single) UMBILIC* I |
UMBILICI (small depressions) |
| 3 | Unknown garment hung up in the old cell (6) |
Z (letter frequently used to indicate an unknown in a mathematical equation) + (TOG [garment] reversed [hung up; down clue] contained in [in] YE [old word for ‘the’]) Z Y (GOT<) E |
ZYGOTE (the product of the union of two gametes [reproductive cells]) |
| 4 | Nothing by journalist is secured according to NBC? (8) |
ZIP (nothing) + PER (by) + ED (editor; journalist) ZIP PER ED |
ZIPPERED (American word to describe something secured with a ZIP fastener) |
| 5 | Formerly lascivious Liberal stripped old film-maker … (6) |
L (Liberal) + KUBRICK (reference Stanley KUBRICK [1928 – 1999], film director]) excluding the first and last letters (stripped) K and K L UBRIC |
LUBRIC (archaic [formerly] word for lewd; lascivious) |
| 6 | … turning, say, soon to embrace with desire (7) |
EARLY (soon) containing (to embrace) EG (for example; say) reversed (turning) EA (GE<) RLY |
EAGERLY (with desire) |
| 8 | In tense time, half heartedly confirm stray stash (8-5) |
(REASSURE excluding one of the central letters [half-heartedly] S contained in [in] [T {tense} + T {time}]) + ROVE (wander; stray) T (REASURE) T ROVE |
TREASURE-TROVE (ownerless objects of intrinsic or historical value found hidden [in England gold and silver only], property of the crown) |
| 14 | Aromatic leaves spoil sweet butter (8) |
MAR (spoil) + JO (beloved one; sweet) + RAM (something that buts; butter) MAR JO RAM |
MARJORAM (aromatic herb; aromatic leaves) |
| 15 | Sydney’s tearaway arriving, disrupting large international family (8) |
ARR (arriving) contained in (disrupting) (L [large] + I [international] + KIN [family]) L (ARR) I KIN |
LARRIKIN (Australian [Sydney] terms for a hooligan; tearaway]) |
| 16 | Keen to contribute to live page about hired vehicle (7) |
([ACID {keen} contained in {to contribute to} BE {live}] + P [page]) all reversed (about) (P E (DICA) B)< |
PEDICAB (light vehicle consisting of a tricycle with the addition of a seat, usually behind, covered by a half hood, for a passenger or passengers; hired vehicle) |
| 17 | Search and rescue initiated by mostly vigilant island state (7) |
SAR (start letters of [initiated by] each of SEARCH, AND and RESCUE) + AWAKE (alert; vigilant) excluding the final letter (mostly) E SAR AWAK |
SARAWAK (one of the two States of Malaysia that are situated on the island of Borneo; island state) |
| 19 | Latitude of capsized small boat – longitude coordinate ultimately pinning it? (6) |
EE (last letters [ultimately] of each of LATITUDE and COORDINATE) contained in (pinning) YAWL (small boat) reversed (capsized; down clue) L (EE) WAY< |
LEEWAY (room to manoeuvre; latitude) |
| 21 | Perhaps hide artwork using rag as well (6) |
TAT (rag) + TOO (as well) TAT TOO |
TATTOO (artwork on the skin [hide]) |
Two puzzles in two days from the great man. Another “thank goodness for the Nina” which helped with many I was stuck on. I still missed OOIDAL, entering the obviously wrong ‘ovidal’, both by not even considering ‘loo’ and not knowing the noun sense of ‘are’.
I liked ‘about Shaft, say’ for PRIAPIC and ‘Perhaps hide artwork’ for TATTOO. Favourite was JIMMY RIDDLE, which reminded me of ‘Wee bairn goes better after this (5,8)’ – can’t remember if that was one of Monk’s as well.
Thanks to Monk – and congrats on his 150th Independent puzzle – and to Duncan
Very tough. Great nina.
Lots of new words for me. Didn’t know CAM in 9a (in Chambers “cam/Kam” can mean “awry”, which I took to be eccentric); OOIDAL; LUBRIC; or YAWL in 19d. Got all these from the wordplay but I also didn’t know PRIAPIC and had to resort to a word fit for this.
Thought the double use of TRIAL in 8a & 20a was a little clumsy but that’s just nitpicking.
Thanks to Monk and Duncan.
Thank goodness for the Nina indeed – I was just saying to Mr CS ‘this is very hard’ when I noticed that there were a number of Cs and Ls down the edges and helped by seeing ‘Monk’ at the bottom of the grid, I managed to get there in the end.
Congratulations and thank you to Monk – my top favourite was 13a because it made me laugh – and to Duncan for the blog
Congrats Monk. The perimeter made it a tad easier than yesterday’s.
Rock on!
Yes, quite tough, but we spotted the nina towards the end which helped wsith the last few, mainly in the NE corner. LOI was OOIDAL after we realised we were afer a word derived friom the Greek, rather than Latin, for egg and remembered the abbreviation for a metric measure of area. Couldn’t parse CITIZENS, though, having forgotten about zits.
A great puzzle, though, if a tad reliant on bodily functions.
Congratulations, Monk, and thanks, Duncan.
Thank you duncanshiell for a blog that is truly a work of art 😀 and thanks to others for comments. It was indeed Indie 150 from sunny Yorkshire, and the pan-grid Nina forced entries a tad more than desirable; it may of course excuse/explain the ‘bodily’ aspect to which allan_c refers 😉
Thanks to duncanshiell and Monk
I can hardly believe I didn’t spot the nina. It would have helped with 5d which took me almost as long as the rest of the puzzle. Congrats to Monk.
Thanks for parsing LEEWAY Duncan – one less word to check in Chambers. There were quite a few guesses tonight after we had unravelled the wordplay.
Thankfully the nina was spotted before we reached the end and opened up the top half which was giving us some problems. When we realised what was happening, we forgave Monk for the unfamiliar words.
Congratulations Monk on your 150th!
I’ve been out this evening and I tried to do this on the train. Defeated me, although I’m surprised as to how much I did get eventually – about three quarters.
Should I feel silly for not (as always) spotting the Nina, or proud that we eventually solved it all without. Lots of new or very unfamiliar words, never heard of Jimmy Riddle either, must have a sheltered life.