Doable, but you will need to put your thinking cap on! Thank you Monk.
I have no idea what the Nina is today. I will have a better look after I have had a little rest (in a darkened room).
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | MAXIMUM |
Greatest foreign character, in principle (7)
|
| MU (Greek letter, foreign character) inside MAXIM (principle) | ||
| 5 | BREAK |
Chance magistrate will crush resistance (5)
|
| BEAK (magistrate) containing (will crush) R (resistance) | ||
| 9 | ASH |
It’s been burnt when hot (3)
|
| AS (when) H (hot) | ||
| 10 | CONSIGNMENT |
Engineer sent unopened incoming goods for dispatch (11)
|
| anagram (engineer) of SENT and iCOMING missing first letter (unopened) | ||
| 11 | STONE ME |
My southern accent, oddly meek (5,2)
|
| S (southern) TONE (accent) then every other letter (oddly) of MeEk – an exclamation of surprise | ||
| 12 | ANAEMIC |
Anything but bloody American baroque cinema (7)
|
| A (American) then anagram (baroque) of CINEMA | ||
| 14 | GOD’S OWN COUNTRY |
US Homeland broadcast boring criminal drug tycoon (4,3,7)
|
| SOWN (broadcast) inside (boring, making a hole in) anagram (criminal) of DRUG TYCOON – the phrase means “homeland”, used especially in the USA | ||
| 15 | STORAGE BATTERY |
Recipient of charge after attack on drunken toerags (7,7)
|
| BATTERY (attack) follows anagram (drunken) of TOERAGS | ||
| 18 | ASEPTIC |
First day of month gripped by a cold – not if this (7)
|
| SEPT I (1st day of month) inside (gripped by) A C (cold) | ||
| 19 | TANGRAM |
Fly back stuff – it’s a puzzle (7)
|
| GNAT (fly) reversed (back) then RAM (stuff) | ||
| 21 | OPPENHEIMER |
Scientist’s mobile phone empire (11)
|
| anagram (mobile) of PHONE EMPIRE | ||
| 23 | VET |
Examine old soldier (3)
|
| double definition | ||
| 24 | NAPOO |
Finished by noon, article mostly lacking (5)
|
| N (noon) A (indefinite article) and POOr (lacking, mostly) | ||
| 25 | SPLINES |
Strips spelling courses (7)
|
| SP (spelling, abbreviation) then LINES (courses) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | MEANS |
Humble carers taking lowest income (5)
|
| MEAN (humble) and last letter (taking the lowest of…) carerS | ||
| 2 | X-CHROMOSOME |
This repeatedly makes a female kiss and smooch more animatedly (1-10)
|
| X (a kiss) then anagram (animatedly) of SMOOCH MORE | ||
| 3 | MUCKERS |
After changing top from small to medium, dupes mates (7)
|
| sUCKERS (dupes) with first letter (top) changed from S (small) to M (medium) | ||
| 4 | MONKEY WRENCHES |
Right to stop girls chasing £500 – they’ll turn nuts (6,8)
|
| R (right) inside (to stop, like a cork) WENCHES (girls) all following (chasing) MONKEY (£5000, slang) | ||
| 5 | BUNRAKU |
Cake placed on earthenware in Japanese theatre (7)
|
| BUN (cake) on RAKU (earthenware, a type of Japanese pottery) | ||
| 6 | EWE |
The last things you’d see in the cow pasture – would include me (3)
|
| the final letters (the last things you’d see) in thE coW pasturE – things you would not see in a cow pasture (in the fields of Crosswordland anyway) | ||
| 7 | KITSCHY |
Vulgar jerk ultimately restless about son (7)
|
| last letter (ultimately) of jerK then ITCHY (restless) containing (about) S (son) | ||
| 8 | FINANCIAL TIMES |
In came finalist, playing this rag (9,5)
|
| anagram (playing) of IN CAME FINALIST – a rag is a newspaper | ||
| 13 | MOTOR-DRIVEN |
Machine-powered muscle finally yielded and split (5-6)
|
| MOTOR (muscle, in biology) tehn last letter (finally) of yieldeD and RIVEN (split) | ||
| 15 | SPA TOWN |
Concede after quarrel in Bath, say (3,4)
|
| OWN (concede) following (after) SPAT (quarrel) | ||
| 16 | ANTONIO |
Not in favour of entertaining forward old merchant (7)
|
| ANTI (not in favour) containing (entertaining) ON (forward) then O (old) – titular character from The Merchant of Venice | ||
| 17 | TENDRIL |
Tense doctor in row over thread? Sort of (7)
|
| T (tense) then DR (doctor) inside LINE (row) reversed (over) – a sort of thread | ||
| 20 | MATHS |
Dull, hard, second subject (5)
|
| MAT (dull) H (hard) and S (second) | ||
| 22 | PEP |
Go with power base, suppressing pressure (3)
|
| P (power) E (base, of the natural log) then (suppressing, on top of in a down entry) P (pressure) |
I know I’m in for a bumpy ride with Monk but I do enjoy a challenge and so this proved.
Failed on two and couldn’t parse a couple more so came here to see what light PeeDee would shed.
If my knowledge of pottery helped with 5d, the opposite is true with carpentry in 25a. This and the military jargon of 24a were both beyond my ken.
Didn’t see a nina either.
There was much I enjoyed today, however, including 2d, 4d, 5d, 15d, 20d and 16a.
Thanks for the workout, Monk, and to PeeDee for the answers I missed.
Is this Monk’s 147th crossword puzzle by any chance (the MAXIMUM BREAK in snooker)? Does anyone know?
That’s what I thought – you blogged his hundredth in 2017, which makes it plausible that this is his 147th.
.. and MONK-EY WRENCHES (jn the FINANCIAL TIMES) might be a description of his puzzles.
A very slow start with this one. After half an hour I’d only solved half a dozen and was ready to throw in the towel. But things picked up a bit, and I quite enjoyed it. I don’t mind, in fact I enjoy, expanding my lexicon by one or two each time I do a cryptic, but I have done so by rather more on this occasion. I was unaware of BUNRAKU, RAKU, MUCKERS, STONE ME, SPLINES and NAPOO, nor this meaning of MONKEY.
I’ve never seen BAROQUE as an anagrind. Is the setter implying that it sounds similar to BROKE, which is probably better suited as one? Unfortunately I pronounce it BA-ROCK, so count me out.
I assumed the quarrel in 15d was a SPAR, and it was a while till it dawned on me that it was a SPAT. I’m more used to “dull” being “matt” or even “matte”, but I concede that “mat” is perfectly OK.
I like your thinking Andrew! That must be it. Monkey-wrenches would also be a reference to the Monkey-puzzles from the former great setter Cinephile/Araucaria.
Geoff Down Under – baroque means whimsical, flamboyant, in a complex style. A somewhat arbitrary rendering of the letters.
Thank you, PeeDee. That makes eight additions to my lexicon! So much to learn, so little time…
I went to print off the Guardian and then the FT and on seeing the setters were Vlad and Monk I knew both were going to be hard work. I found this one the more difficult of the two and after a long struggle ended up missing 5d; not knowing the ‘earthenware’ or the ‘Japanese theatre’, that was one I was never going to get. TANGRAM was another new one and I had to dredge up NAPOO from the depths.
The def and surface for X-CHROMOSOME were my pick of lots of good clues. Good thought about the possible hidden message in the top row and spotting MONK-EY at 4d. There’s also MATHS at 20d. Maybe Monk will drop in and tell us if you’re on to something.
Thanks to Monk and PeeDee
Like others, a few unknowns here. Couldn’t get BUNRAKU without help as it was new to me and didn’t know RAKU either. Can’t remember meeting TANGRAM or NAPOO either. Have met SPLINES in a maths sense where cubic splines (for example) are used in curve sketching so it was a reasonable guess for 25a. As others have said, I figured this was probably puzzle number 147.
Wow, what a workout.
24A I had no idea as I have never heard of this word (non-word?).
11A I know the expression “stone the crows” but not this.
15A I managed to get this as just two days ago we had a solar battery installed.
25A a totally new word to me.
3D was vaguely familiar – maybe from watching Minder many years ago.
5D – no idea at all. I think that I should retire from cryptic-crossword land.
4D – I didn’t know that a “monkey” was a sum of money.
Ahhh, 16D brings back memories. I remember playing Antonio in a school play: “In sooth I know not why I am so sad: It wearies me; you say it wearies you”
I cannot now believe that I memorised every line of that character’s part in that play.
Peter, I remembered NAPOO from a school production that contained the song Good-by-ee!
Good-bye-ee! good-bye-ee!
Wipe the tear, baby dear, from your eye-ee.
Tho’ it’s hard to part I know,
I’ll be tickled to death to go.
Don’t cry-ee! don’t sigh-ee!
There’s a silver lining in the sky-ee.
Bonsoir old thing, cheerio! chin chin!
Nah-poo! Toodle-oo!
Good-bye-ee!
It is things that happened last week that I find hard to remember now.
Peter, you and I seem to be on the same page. I was afraid you were going to tell me “I’m surprised you haven’t heard of …” [Winking emoji]
Thanks Monk. I knew this would take some time but it was time worth spent due to clues like X-CHROMOSOME, KITSCHY, and FINANCIAL TIMES. I never got NAPOO and I needed a word finder for BUNRAKU, ASEPTIC (very clever), and SPLINES. Thanks PeeDee for parsing.
Thanks PeeDee and Monk.
Good challenge! Saw MONKey, but the rest of the nina was lost on me. Congratulations to MONK…147th!
Likes
ANEAMIC, KITSCHY
AS with GDU@5, I like having a few NHOs that enlarge my vocabulary, but this was a bridge too far. Not knowing RAKU for earthenware or BUNRAKU for Japanese theatre, 5d was flat-out impossible for me. (I think difficult or “obscure” words should be clued on the easier side.)
“Guess and google” is OK once in a while, but a lot of it is not very satisfying.
Thanks, Monk for the lesson in humility and PeeDee for the parsing help with too many clues to list.
Thanks PeeDee for great blog and to posters for the appreciative comments. ‘Twas indeed my 147th puzzle (first row) and the other Nina components were MONK[EY WRENCHES] FINANCIAL TIMES.
Just a tiny comment on the note for X-CHROMOSOME: rather than the indicated “anagram (animatedly) of X (a kiss) and SMOOCH MORE” it was deliberately “X (a kiss) and anagram (animatedly) of SMOOCH MORE“. Where possible, it seems more elegant to keep implied single-letters out of the fodder.
Thanks Monk, and congratulations.
Looking forward to you breaking the double ton.
Nice to see a setter using MY to represent something other than COR
I worked out NAPOO but havent heard of SPLINES
Always a fun challenge with Monk
Thanks for dropping Monk, I have updated the explanation for X-CHROMOSOME in the blog.
Great puzzle with some fantastic clues.
Steady progress after a slow start. I needed a bit of help with Thesaurus, and Google for five down.
Missed Napoo which I thought was a bit unfair as is barely a real word. About 20 minutes of my life wasted on that final clue, never to be recovered.
Hi Moly – it’s mostly a mater of how you look at it. The time I spend learning is the part of my life I haven’t wasted. If you regard the time you spend learning and trying as time wasted then the “I’ve never heard of it” reaction is going to be a big part of your future life.