Another fine puzzle from Monk. Not an easy one, but well worth the effort for those who like a challenge. Thank you Monk.
Monk’s grids are never just a collection of random words. I have no idea what links this lot yet but I will keep looking!
UPDATE: Every answer contains a double letter – thanks to Roz for this.
| ACROSS | ||
| 8 | WELL-NIGH |
Spring evening cut short, almost (4- 4)
|
| WELL (spring) and NIGHt (evening, cut short) | ||
| 9 | HOOKER |
Smack rugby player (6)
|
| double definition – type of boat and playing position | ||
| 10 | ARREST |
Nick needs spades to break overturned earth (6)
|
| S (spades) inside (to break) TERRE (earth) reversed (overturned) | ||
| 11 | FOOTHOLD |
Grip compound securing molar that’s lost cap (8)
|
| FOLD (compound, animal enclosure) contains (securing) tOOTH (molar) missing first letter (lost cap) | ||
| 12 | OTTO |
Oil extracted from skinned sole (4)
|
| bOTTOm (sole) missing outer letters (skinned) | ||
| 13 | COMPASSION |
Bodyguard intercepting unnamed buddy, causing sorrow (10)
|
| SS (Nazi bodyguard) inside (intercepting) COMPAnION (buddy) missing N (name) | ||
| 15 | JACK-OF-ALL-TRADES |
Versatile sort of sailor getting sod all after working (4-2-3-6)
|
| JACK (sailor) then anagram (working) of SOD ALL AFTER | ||
| 18 | SELF-ESTEEM |
Conviction that number one is positive (4-6)
|
| cryptic definition | ||
| 20 | TIGG |
Dickensian character rejected grand fool (4)
|
| a reversal (rejected) of G (grand) GIT (fool) – a character from Martin Chuzzlewit | ||
| 22 | BROOKLYN |
Bird eaten by black tailless cat somewhere in Kings (8)
|
| ROOK (bird) inside (eaten by) B (black) LYNx (cat, tailless) – somewhere in Kings County, New York | ||
| 24 | TERROR |
Fear defeat, ultimately by an own goal (6)
|
| defeaT (last letter, ultimately) then ERROR (own goal) | ||
| 25 | ANNEXE |
Join by contributing to A Year in Provence (6)
|
| X (by, multiplication) inside (contributing to) ANNEE (a year in French, in Provence). In Chambers ANNEXE is only listed as a noun (not meaning a join). Join as a verb is listed as ANNEX. If I get time I will have a look in some other dictionaries. | ||
| 26 | CONSOMME |
Against having a battle, in the soup (8)
|
| CON (against) and SOMME (a battle) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | FERRET |
Harry Bishop breaks plates (6)
|
| RR (right Reverend, bishop’s title) inside (breaks) FEET (plates, slang) | ||
| 2 | BLUE BOOK |
Down to reserve parliamentary report (4,4)
|
| BLUE (down, unhappy) and BOOK (to reserve) | ||
| 3 | FISTICUFFS |
Scrap stuff associated with sci-fi novel (10)
|
| anagram (novel) of STUFF with SCI-FI | ||
| 4 | THE FEMALE EUNUCH |
Clue – mostly hateful he-men canned feminist analysis (3,6,6)
|
| anagram (canned ?) of CLUE with HATEFU (hateful, mostly) and HE-MEN – book by Germaine Greer. |
||
| 5 | SHOO |
Get lost mule picked up (4)
|
| sounds like (picked up) “shoe” (mole, type of slipper) | ||
| 6 | HOO-HAS |
Hood of hearse regularly removed in kerfuffles (3-3)
|
| HoOd Of HeArSe with every other letter (regularly) removed | ||
| 7 | WELL DONE |
Think about demoting Germany and Spain – bravo (4,4)
|
| DWELL ON (think about) with D (Deutschland, Germany) moved lower down the word (demoted) then E (Espana, Spain) | ||
| 14 | ATTEMPTING |
Trying giant, clumsy without charm (10)
|
| anagram (clumsy) of GIANT contains (is without, outside…) TEMPT (charm, to allure) | ||
| 16 | ABERRANT |
Rogue charged in a dock after taking heroin (8)
|
| RAN (charged) inside A BERTh (dock) missing (after taking) H(heroin) | ||
| 17 | ANTEROOM |
Reception from mountain over northern heath (8)
|
| ETNA (Mt Etna) reversed (over) then MOOR (heath) reversed (northern, travelling upwards, in the grid) | ||
| 19 | FOOTED |
Paid for US agent, extremely taken aback when nabbed (6)
|
| FED (US agent) contains (has…when nabbed) TOO (extremely) reversed (taken aback) – to foot the bill | ||
| 21 | GLOOMY |
Dark, unopened icy house, extremely musty (6)
|
| iGLOO (icy house) missing first letter (unopened) then MustY (outer letters, extremely) | ||
| 23 | LEEK |
Barge over national emblem (4)
|
| KEEL (barge) reversed (over) – the emblem of Wales |
Thanks PeeDee – like you I feel there must be some kind of theme going on, but I can’t see it.
I can help with 4d though – canned is slang for drunk.
Also had canned = drunk. A DNF for me. Couldn’t get the crossing FERRET and OTTO. Still don’t get “ferret” for “harry”. To me, ferret means “search” and “harry” means “hamper” which are very different.
TIGG was a guess for me. As for ANNEXE, maybe you can take “join” as a noun as well.
Thanks Andrew. I thought at the time canned might mean drunk, but I wondered if it was actually a recognised phrase or just one of the many “words” for drunk that people make up on the spur of the moment (especially when a bit drunk). So I looked it up in Chambers and didn’t find it. Stupidly I looked under the wrong entry for can: I looked under the “to be able to” entry rather than the bleedin’ obvious “tin of beer” entry.
Hovis – good point about harry not meaning to hunt, only to harass.
I can’t see join as a noun for annexe. For example: there might be a join in a building, but the annexe is the thing that is joined, not the join itself. An annexation is a join perhaps.
I think every answer had a double letter but not checked fully yet, my friend has taken her FT back.
I love a crossword challenge – especially one by Monk. I’m delighted to report that I did notice all the double letters too.
Thanks to Monk for the fun and PeeDee for the blog
Also noticed the double letters but as this was a DNF, I came here for confirmation and answers to all sorts of questions.
I battled foolishly with R(u)ncie (Bishop) and ”P(lates)’ to give PRINCE (Harry) but WELL NIGH meant it was clearly wrong. Still, FERRET eluded me, along with OTTO and the parsing of SHOO!
Despite the degree of difficulty, I had fun with this notching up HOO-HAS, FISTICUFFS and THE FEMALE EUNUCH as favourites.
Thanks to Monk and PeeDee for blogging this ticklish grid.
Repaid the not inconsiderable effort spent on this, despite four or five remaking unparsed and missing the double letters. The crossing OTTO and FERRET were my LOI’s too. THE FEMALE EUNUCH was my favourite – I see published over 50 years ago and the great lady herself now over 80.
Thanks to Monk and PeeDee
Sorry I was rushing before, forgot to say thanks for the blog and I agree with comments that annexe and ferret are more than dubious.
Thought this was going to be unusually easy for a Monk when the two fifteen-letter ones went in immediately, but slowed down after that, getting there in the end with ANNEXE. Well worth the effort, though.
Chambers certainly doesn’t allow for ferret = harry, but my rather large old OED gives “to worry” as a meaning for both (admittedly, for Ferret, it’s in 1599…). So I would let Monk get away with that. Annexe is neither a verb nor a noun meaning join so I can’t defend that.
Chambers 1988 has ferret, to drive out of a hiding place, to search out persistently. Works for me.
Also, it has annexe as an alternative to annex.
We needed wordfinder help for several answers and even then couldn’t get TIGG as we thought the definition was ‘fool’ – d’oh! And some answers went in unparsed. Plenty to like, though; FISTICUFFS was favourite.
Thanks, Monk and PeeDee
Too many obscure meanings and slightly-off definitions to be satisfying. I didn’t finish, and don’t even feel inclined to try to get over the line with the help of a few solutions from here I’m afraid.
Thanks Monk and PeeDee
Certainly a challenging puzzle as is the wont of this setter and completely missed the double-lettered answers throughout. Was pleased to be able to fill the grid, although had to check on a few – TIGG, HOOKER (as a fishing boat), that spelling of ANNEXE (see it is a British variant of the spelling of ANNEX), BROOKLYN (being in the King’s county of New York) and the ‘harry’ meaning of FERRET. Needed the blog for the proper parsing of ABBERRANT and OTTO – and didn’t know that meaning of ‘canned’.
Finished in the NW corner, as others did with FERRET and OTTO the last couple in.
‘Canned’ in the U.S. is routinely used to mean fired, discarded, tossed out and any number of other similar usages.
Thanks to all on this. A couple toughies for me, now explained.
Very late to this, but in 13a SS is more likely to be Secret Service isn’t it? Presidential bodyguard?
Hi Kev, I hadn’t considered that.
Secret Service isn’t a well known term in the UK for a bodyguard, and is isn’t listed in Chambers dictionary. In the UK the Secret Services indicates the security services in general, something like the CIA as a whole. But I have not seen SS as an abbreviation for Secret Service.
In Europe SS is an abbreviation for Schutzstaffel, meaning literally “protection department” or “bodyguard”.