Great to see Monk in the Wednesday slot this morning.
A witty challenge with plenty to enjoy! I’ve spotted the catchphrase / Nina as you can see, but I’ll leave it to someone else to explain as it’s not something I am familiar with. Thank you to Monk for the morning workout.
Probing PUG< (dog, <from behind): I’VE (setter has)
WARD< (charge, <returned) on OVER (deliveries)
‘Over’ is a cricketing term for six deliveries
[ferrul]E (end of) + LEG (on) + (CANE)* (*bent)
‘Leg’ is a cricketing term meaning ‘on’
NO (number) hidden by SCAT (crap)
(*new) (SMONGER)* = REM SONG
“SPAY” (sterilise, “reportedly”)
TROUT (grumpy old lady) keeps [pas]TO[ral] (centrepiece of)
([call]IGRAPHY)* (CALL (name) banished prior to *reformation)
[f]LAMB[oyance] (overwhelms)
(“BLEW” (informed) on “PRINCE” (royal)) (“reportedly”)
[sh]EN[an]IG[an] MA[rk] (odd couples expelled)
EVER (always) in BAG (sack) by [larg]E (end of)
(IN STREAM)* (*faulty (i.e. announced “fawlty”))
SEE (judge) + SAW (apprehended)
KILL (shot game) on REED< (grass, <roll of)
[con]C[i]ERGES (wardens, I (one) leaving; blowing out CON (trick))
[t]O [po]P [th]E [questio]N (at last)
(E.G. + NEZ (nose, French) + O[n]L[y] (intermittently))< (<brought up)
(C[hurc]H (vacuous) + SENIORS)* (*shifting) + P (pressure)
(YOU + I + SOLD)* (*out)
O (over) + (R (river) stopping A + AGE (while))
BUM (tramp) interrupting (BOASTER)* (*awful)
With ‘rarely’ presumably referring to the word itself being a rare / obsolete word
(BOOT)* (*damaged) + (NAG (horse) + [dentin]G (finally))< (<back)
(TRIANGLE)* (*requires reconstruction)
RUB (massage) + BIS (twice) offered by H (hotel)
‘Bis’ is a musical instruction
A (adult) + UNTIE (loose)
[d]ISRAEL[i] (former PM, scrapping borders)
S (son) enters VIA (by way of)
Pretty fiendish today . OARAGE and OBUMBRATES unknown by me . Annoyingly I had to resort to word finders; the clues were fair, but just too hard for me. I have never heard of the catchphrase either.
Thanks to Monk for an ingenious puzzle and to Oriel for his excellent blog.
Monk is one of the few left on my ever diminishing “don’t attempt” list, but I had a go today. Got about a third out. I just can’t get on the right wavelength. I might try again in six months or so.
The catchphrase of the pathologist – Max – in Morse/Endeavour?
Very hard to solve around the top TWO O’CLOCK bit
SNOCAT, OVERDRAW, OARAGE…OCLO…CERGES, KILLDEER – all unheard of by me, but derivable.
“Fiendish” indeed. Loved it.
Thanks M&O
Very hard for me too but equally satisfying to finish. Seeing the peripheral Nina, even if I didn’t know its significance (thanks FrankieG @3), helped with a few including NEWSMONGER and TROT OUT. Three new words in KILLDEER, CERGES and my last in OBUMBRATE, so with a few other uncommon words like OARAGE this ended up taking a long time. Still, glad I didn’t GIVE UP and it was great to see the green tick at the end.
Thanks to Monk and Oriel
Definitely hard but very satisfying to finish
Many thanks to Monk and Oriel
Agree with Frankie’s assessment where the troublespots were concerned. The welcome Endeavour message around the perimeter certainly helped though I didn’t know KILLDEER for ‘plover’, OARRAGE or OBUMBRATES (but could, at least, parse the latter). Despite a few other unparsed answers, I still enjoyed this challenge very much. MINARETS was a favourite among a crop of gems.
Thanks to Monk and Oriel.
I meant OARAGE.
The nina is a phrase often used by Dr de Bryn, the pathologist in the television programme Endeavour, the prequel to Inspector Morse. At the scene of crime, he will say that he can’t be definitive on some aspect or other until he has performed a post mortem examination. More often than not he ends with “Gentlemen, shall we say two o’clock?”.
Thanks for the blog, great puzzle. ENIGMA was very clever, I have not seen the double letter shift very often before. Chambers does give OBUMBRATES as rare, so rarely in the clue is a very fair indicator.
Well struggled mightily with this and was reduced to scrabbling around with aids and word check. Finally gave up on KILLDEAR and OARAGE so tx to the blog.
I did find some of the homonyms a bit stretchy. For instance OVERDRAW for “embellish” and CENSORSHIP for “veto” but mostly this just beat me fair and square. Spent ages trying to take “raph” (as a short version of the name Raphael) out of calligraphy to get my anagram fodder to work but obviously in vain. One example among quite a few.
Can I bring myself to say tx to Monk after having my brain wrenched so spectacularly? Well there was much to enjoy LOZENGE for a cheeky bit of French, ISRAEL for the concept and INTEGRAL for the neat spot so I can just manage it. Tx Monk and tx Oriel for the helpful blog.
Thanks, Monk and Oriel. That was fiendish indeed. Some of it felt a bit tortuous (and indeed torturous) but it’s nice to have a proper challenge on a weekday. Spotting the Nina helped me over the line in the end but I couldn’t parse CERGES.
OBUMBRATES made me chuckle – seemed so unlikely but the wordplay was clear and the app confirmed it as correct.
Roz – I know you’re not a fan of indirect anagrams, but how do you feel about indirect anagram indicators? Not sure that’s playing entirely fair myself, but it did make for an amusing surface.
Widdersbel – do you mean NEWSMONGER ? I would call this a reverse anagram. The answer itself must lead to the letters REMSONG , in this case entirely fair.
Indirect is only when some of the letters to be mixed are not actually there.
No – I meant “Fawlty”. I’m used to seeing eg “said you” to indicate U, but the extra step to use that homophone as an anagram indicator is very unusual… But at least the penny did eventually drop there, unlike CERGES.
I thought the NEWSMONGER clue was superb.
Thanks Monk. Much of this was difficult for me and I wasn’t ashamed to use the check button to confirm (or not) my guesses on several occasions. I generally struggle with Monk but I always make the attempt because his clues are always expertly crafted. I did see the clever nina but didn’t know its origin. Clues like NEWSMONGER, ENIGMA, BEVERAGE, and SNO-CAT will always keep me returning. Thanks Oriel for filling in my many parsing gaps.
Can’t say I enjoyed the thrashing I got from today’s puzzle. But I learned a lot after reading this blog. So thank you all and monk for the permanent scars
I liked this as per usual for Monk but couldnt find the origin of TWO O CLOCK GENTLEMENS HALL
Did someone mention Endeavour -always fun to rewatch them (always liked Fred Thursday instead of Joe Friday(Dragnet)-that mustg kame me old!
Widdersbel@14 sorry I missed this, 8pm our usual switch-off time. Again I have no problem with this , the homophone clearly gives faulty , all the letters of MINARETS are there to mix up.
My issue is something like one= i or a being included in an anagram , the i and a are not actually written in the clue. I can solve anagrams in my head effortlessly as long as I can see the letters on the page.
The discussion on here all started with an Everyman clue , copper=CU was included in the anagram but the letter U is not actually written anywhere.