Tricky, but nice. Thank you Monk.
The grid is a pangram, but probably contains something more. Please chip in if you know what that is.
| ACROSS | ||
| 8 | CHICKPEA |
Pulse of child not quite maximum (8)
|
| CHICK (child) and PEAk (maximum, not quite) | ||
| 9 | PEACHY |
Excellent training in pain? (6)
|
| PE (training) then ACHY (in pain) | ||
| 10 | INFO |
50% of grass is dope, generally (4)
|
| 50% of INFOrmer (grass) | ||
| 11 | DIE WALKURE |
Cycle section of pass then ramble by a river (3,7)
|
| DIE (pass, to expire) then WALK (ramble) by URE (a river) – part of the Ring Cycle | ||
| 12 | ASYLUM |
Shelter unknown in a squalid neighbourhood (6)
|
| Y (unknown) inside A SLUM (squalid neighbourhood) | ||
| 14 | JOYOUSLY |
Happily finish off post skilful solvers exchanged (8)
|
| JOb (post, finish missing) then SLY (skilful) YOU (solvers) with the two part in the other order (exchanged) | ||
| 15 | CREVICE |
Conservative minister wanting methamphetamine split (7)
|
| C (conservative) REV (minister) with ICE (methamphetamine) | ||
| 17 | VOLTAGE |
Rodent stuffed by dog’s power (7)
|
| VOLE (rodent) contains (stuffed by) TAG (dog) – literally minded physicists please restrain yourselves, it’s bad for your blood pressure! | ||
| 20 | FATHOMED |
Saw in between edges of floorboard (8)
|
| AT HOME (in) inside FloorboarD (edges of) | ||
| 22 | TREBLE |
Losing heart, shake fearfully in high range (6)
|
| TREmBLE (shake fearfully) missing middle letter (heart) | ||
| 24 | CONNIPTION |
Fit woman briefly exercises by absorbing oxygen (10)
|
| CONNIe (woman, briefly) then PT (exercises) IN (by) containing (absorbing) O (oxygen) | ||
| 25 | SCUM |
Caught interrupting chief points in film? (4)
|
| C (caught) inside SUM (summary, chief points) – either scum on a liquid or else the 1979 film of that name | ||
| 26 | WELLIE |
Spring that is providing power (6)
|
| WELL (spring) and IE (that is) | ||
| 27 | SQUEEZED |
Boyfriend or girlfriend and girlfriend or boyfriend finally embraced (8)
|
| SQUEEZE (boyfriend or girlfriend) then last letter (finally) of girlfrienD or boyfrienD | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | THANKS |
Cheers husband beset by defeats (6)
|
| H (husband) inside TANKS (defeats) | ||
| 2 | ECHO |
Repeat content of multiple-choice (4)
|
| found inside multiplE CHOice | ||
| 3 | EPIDEMIC |
Half-stopping large-scale outbreak (8)
|
| DEMI (half) inside (stopping, like a cork) EPIC (large scale) | ||
| 4 | BASENJI |
Dog in a state, vile one biting (7)
|
| NJ (New Jersey) inside (bitten by) BASE (vile) I (one) | ||
| 5 | APIARY |
Oddly, au pair Mary will not open social workers’ home? (6)
|
| odd letters from Au PaIr then mARY (not opening) – bees are social workers | ||
| 6 | LACKLUSTRE |
Dull book banned in dismal five-year period (10)
|
| bLACK (dismal) missing B (book) then LUSTRE (five year period, same as lustrum) | ||
| 7 | SHORT LEG |
Drink left, say, for one currently not in? (5,3)
|
| SHORT (drink) L (left) EG (say) – a fielder in cricket, so one not in (not batting) | ||
| 13 | LOVE HANDLE |
Very much fancy name for unwanted bit on the side? (4,6)
|
| LOVE (very much fancy) and HANDLE (name) – who says they’re not wanted! | ||
| 16 | REASONED |
Logical boy’s cracking study about English (8)
|
| SON (boy) inside (is cracking) READ (study) containing E (English) | ||
| 18 | OX-TONGUE |
Daisy’s family member sort of got on with ex outside university (2-6)
|
| anagram (sort) of GOT ON with EX containing (outside) U (university) | ||
| 19 | EDGIEST |
Most nervous side almost gets thrashed (7)
|
| anagram (thrashed) of SIDE with GETs (almost) | ||
| 21 | MUPPET |
Fool married to a total sulk (6)
|
| M (married) then UP (to a total, in Chambers!) and PET (sulk) | ||
| 23 | LAUREN |
Girl’s IT network receiving queries regularly (6)
|
| LAN (IT network) contains qUeRiEs | ||
| 25 | SKEW |
Asymmetrical stitch securing knitted top? (4)
|
| SEW (stitch) contains Knitted (top letter) |
14a held me up the most as I was initially convinced the answer was ‘joyfully’. Fortunately, when I came back for a second look, the correct answer and parsing leapt out at me. Thought FATHOMED & LOVE HANDLE were great clues.
LACKLUSTRE involved a word fit cheat. I just couldn’t recall the word for a 5 year period. As it happens, I was thinking of ‘lustrum’ and didn’t know ‘lustre’ as an alternative.
Played, PeeDee.
Not the grid one would wish to solve under time-pressure.
Good puzzle & it looks Nina-ish but I can’t see anything myself.
No change there.
To Hovis:
I thought the mis-direction of IN for AT HOME in 20 was a piece of reverse crossword genius. Made the puzzle for me.
Yes, congrats to PeeDee – stellar work under pressure. Two consecutive blinders and my best attempt yet at a Monk puzzle with just two requiring cheats: BASENJI and DIE WALKURE.
LOVE HANDLES was super and I had ticks for CONNIPTION, OX-TONGUE and WELLIE (though I always imagined it with a ‘y’).
Thanks to Monk and PeeDee.
Thanks to Monk for an enjoyable struggle and thanks to PeeDee for such sterling work under pressure.
I needed the blog to help me parse two: JOYOUSLY (which I also thought was going to be ‘joyfully’) where I was trying to make it into some sort of substitution clue (‘exchanged’) involving ‘post=job’ and ‘you=solvers’ and I couldn’t work out the rest; and LACKLUSTRE where I had the elements ‘(B)lack’ and lustrum – so the answer had to be LACKLUSTRE, but I couldn’t see why I should change ‘lustrum’ into ‘lustre’ – never occurred to me that they are alternative versions of the same word.
Oops, I meant LOVE HANDLE.
A very enjoyable struggle indeed – thanks to Monk and PeeDee
For the parsing of 17a, Chambers gives TAG (verb) as “to dog or follow closely”.
Yes, Tom, that’s how I read it.
I can’t make head or tail of the nina. 🙂
Only guessing, but the symmetrically-placed THANKS LAUREN might refer to something.
Thanks for the workout Monk. This took an overnight brain reset so I finished it with breakfast coffee this morning. Now I can get on with my day.
Um, peedee, I think the definition in 26a is “providing power” as you have to put the wellie in to get the power.
I wondered if there was a “power” theme but couldn’t see anything to link the references.
This was tough going and I appreciate your untangling peedee. 1d.
Tom_I – I have removed the spurious “tag” from 17a. Thanks for spotting that.
Mystgore – I think WELLIE has to be a noun: “give it some wellie” or “give it some power”.
I’m not sure what part of speech “providing power” is, but it does not seem to match “wellie”.
CHICKPEA went in straightaway as our first one in. But after that we struggled with this for a couple of hours which could have been better spent, only ploughing on on the ‘Mastermind’ principle (we’ve started so we’ll finish). CONNIPTION we thought was quite unfair; it could at least have had an indication that the term is American (and slang at that). We were eventually left with the NE corner which we only completed by trial and error with a wordfinder. DIE WALKÜRE was our LOI – a real facepalm moment when we got it, and a very neat clue we thought. And despite our struggle we did also like FATHOMED, WELLIE and APIARY.
So despite all, Thanks to Monk and of course to PeeDee.
Goodness this was hard. I failed on DIE WALKURE, being too cute and trying to spell this, probably in pseudo-German, as an obviously unparsed ‘Die Valkyre’. Others like BASENJI, ‘Daisy’s family member’, ‘one not currently in?’ and CONNIPTION at the end took a lot of working out.
Chalmie @10 – if I ask politely enough, any chance of a bit more help? Still can’t see it.
Thanks to Monk and PeeDee
Thanks, PeeDee. In 24a, why is by = in? The two prepositions don’t seem at all synonymous to me.
Hello Verbose @19. What about “Jack and Jill dropped by this afternoon” = “Jack and Jill dropped in this afternoon”. Maybe not exactly the same, but good enough for me.
Only just finished this.
I usually look for something in the perimeter to help me on my way but as i coudnt see anything much I started noticing a likely pangram
I luckily had JOYOUSLY in safely but took a while knocking out the NE corner
Masterful cluing and I feel better having escaped unscathed.
Thanks Monk and OPeeDee
Verbose @16 – my reason for choosing by=in for the parsing of 24a was that I found it in Chambers, look under in entry 1 – preposition – usage 10.
In general when I find a puzzle hard I start looking up words from the clues in Chambers. That includes the words I do know the meaning of as well as the ones I don’t. In fact it is especially important to look at the ones you think you do know the meaning of: I usually find that words are used in more ways than I can think of myself.
Thanks PeeDee for the usual great blog and to all for overwhelmingly positive comments, some particularly so 🙂 Just to clarify that ‘providing’ in 26ac was merely a link word signifying wordplay providing [the answer] power.
Thanks Monk and PeeDee
I usually struggle with this setter and it was no exception here. Had a couple of short sessions to get started last night and again this morning that got the mini corners in the NW and SE, before taking another hour to finish the rest of the 80% remaining answers later this afternoon.
Tried to find a nina around the perimeter to give some help to no avail, before resorting to alternative help to preemptively get 11a and 24a and post check LUSTRE, SQUEEZE, WELLIE and OX-TONGUE. There were quite a few needing post solve parsing – 4d, 18d and 21d. Unfortunately came here without my JOYFULLY parsed, only to discover that it would never parse.
Forgot to look for a pangram, which wouldn’t have save the error anyway.
Finished in the SW corner with MUPPET (had to think about the UP bit – guess ‘added up’ is that sense) and the unknown CONNIPTION the last one in.