Financial Times 17,581 by MONK

by

Phew – I’m pleased to say I made it all the way through.

A pangram from Monk, which might explain a few of the obscurities. Not an easy puzzle, but in retrospect, perfectly sound, and I do love a challenge. Some witty devices made it quite a tricky solve. Many thanks to Monk.

Update: Thanks to Monk for making it known, and the solvers who found the nina. I have updated the grid to highlight the hidden name of the Mitchell and Webb comedy sketch.

ACROSS
1. Bill getting stuck into a trifle — keep going! (7)
ATTABOY

TAB (bill) getting stuck into A TOY (a trifle)

5. Wingless bird bagged by German and dumped? (7)
UNLOVED

[p]LOVE[r] (bird, wingless) bagged by UND (and, German)

9. Specialist troops knock back gutted adversaries (5)
PARAS

RAP< (knock, <back) + A[dversarie]S (gutted)

10. Keen to split what’s owed by PE teacher (9)
PEDAGOGUE

AGOG (keen) to split DUE (what’s owed) by PE

11. Innovation from every direction, three repeatedly (7)
NEWNESS

Cryptic definition

Directions are N (north), E (east), S (south), W (west) and the setter lets us know to use each of these letters, three of them twice/repeatedly

13. High-ranking academics, we fear, being denied opening (7)
READERS

[d]READERS (we fear, being denied opening)

14. Engineer pounds then beats brass (11)
SPONDULICKS

(POUNDS)* (*engineer) then LICKS (beats)

15. Nothing at all ultimately gained in passing hobby (3)
FAD

FA (nothing at all, fanny adams) + [gaine]D (ultimately)

16. Vast age ends in 127 (3)
EON

[on]E [tw]O [seve]N (ends in)

17. Criminal outraged, ban not repealed in court (11)
UNABROGATED

(OUTRAGED BAN)* (*criminal)

20. Old film-maker caught in hilly US upland (7)
COCTEAU

C (caught) in COTEAU (hilly US upland)

22. Parachutes prankster into Downing Street to begin with (7)
DROGUES

ROGUE (prankster) into D[owning] + S[treet] (to begin with)

23. Irritating nonentity mostly kind about noble status (9)
SQUIREDOM

SQUIR[t] (irritating nonentity, mostly) + MODE< (kind, <about)

25. Picked up stalls on which pots are made? (5)
BAIZE

“BAYS” (stalls, “picked up”)

Baize is the fabric used on snooker tables, i.e. where pots are made – pots being the actions of sinking a snooker ball

26. Gets rid of last of felled pines (7)
DITCHES

[felle]D (last of) + ITCHES (pines)

27. Powerful folk, those crowning, inter alia, Charles II and Louis XIV (7)
BIGWIGS

Cryptic definition

Charles II and Louis XIV both customarily wore big wigs

DOWN
1. Draughts possibly holding Peg’s bloomers aloft? (7)
ALPINES

ALES (draughts possibly) holding PIN (peg)

2. Ruin wrap with feathers (5,4)
THROW DOWN

THROW (wrap) + DOWN (feathers)

3. Cut curve around English street (4,3)
BEST END

BEND (curve) around E (English) + ST (street)

4. Foolish talk by secretary unknown, on reflection (3)
YAP

(PA (secretary, Personal Assistant) by Y (unknown))< (<on reflection)

5. Stressed what losing football team must have done (11)
UNDERSCORED

Cryptic definition

6. Stoppages caused by crowd wearing dropped trunks (3,4)
LOG JAMS

JAM (crowd) wearing LOGS (dropped trunks)

7. Woolly complaint undermines Victor (5)
VAGUE

AGUE (complaint) undermines V (Victor, NATO alphabet)

8. Force, out of uniform, meeting journalist as arranged (7)
DRESSED

D[u]RESS (force, out of U (uniform)) meeting ED (journalist)

12. Mad Manuel regularly sings sad medleys (11)
SALMAGUNDIS

(MAD [m]A[n]U[e]L (regularly) SINGS)* (*sad)

15. Cut it fine, boiling pasta (9)
FETTUCINI

(CUT IT FINE)* (*boiling)

16. Pardoned former leader of cartel took drugs (7)
EXCUSED

EX (former) + C[artel] (leader of) + USED (took drugs)

17. Dig up uranium close to thorium (7)
UNEARTH

U (Uranium) + NEAR (close to) + TH (Thorium)

18. In which you could plant second line, arguably in silence (4,3)
GROW BAG

ROW B (second line, arguably) in GAG (silence)

If Row A is the first line, Row C the third, etc.

19. Vagrants dress so badly (7)
DOSSERS

(DRESS SO)* (*badly)

21. Living in America, in a vacuum of sorts? (5)
CRUST

US (America) in CRT (vacuum of sorts, cathode ray tube)

24. Progressive characters seen in ‘March for Labour’ gathering (3)
MOB

M[arch] [f]O[r] [la]B[our] (progressive characters in)

Characters 1, then 2, then 3 of each word, i.e. progressive characters

38 comments on “Financial Times 17,581 by MONK”

  1. My reaction too, Oriel! Monk is always tough but fair. FOI Para at 9ac, LOI Log Jams at 6d as I kept thinking the first word must be Leg. Many favourites including 1ac, 25ac, and 18d. Thanks setter and blogger.

  2. While I always enjoy being introduced to a few interesting unfamiliar words — it’s all part of the fun — this puzzle had too many, and I spent too much time googling and dictionarying. And five other clues I was unable to parse. I ended up revealing the last few.

  4. I thought I was doing so well! I expect a challenge from Monk, and this was certainly a challenge, but I did find myself on the setter’s wavelength which meant I moved smoothly through until being stumped by the final three – I had no idea CRT = cathode ray tube (or, for that matter, that a CRT is a vacuum). So I did need to reveal a letter – R – and CRUST then appeared. Which enabled me to fill in COCTEAU but nho ‘coteau’ as uplands in the US. And then SALMAGUNDIS is a nho and, whilst I guessed at the right way to organise the fodder, my guess was wrong. I was thinking of ‘smorgasbord’ at one point – which, in terms of the dish, doesn’t seem a million miles away.

    Favourites inc PEDAGOGUE, EON, UNABROGATED, DITCHES, ALPINES, LOG JAMS, FETTUCINI and GROW BAGS.

    I don’t think it’s a spoiler to note the remarkable coincidence between this puzzle and one of the other dailies covered by 225. And there was a similarly strange overlap on Saturday, too.

    Thanks Monk and Oriel

  5. PostMark. Yeah, I noticed both of those weird coincidences. They do seem to crop up a lot more than you would expect by chance.

    I’m surprised you don’t remember the old CRT TV sets that came before plasma and LCD and numerous others since then.

  6. Hovis @5: cheeky devil! Though, to be fair, I do occasionally refer to my dotage. I do remember the sets of course but I’m woolly on the science so was unaware of the vacuum. And of the abbreviation. And had not made the connection with the context. So I was as far away as I could be!

  8. I also found this hard, but I felt as though I was acquainted with every word and device used except “coteau,” and that one was a simple matter to check. (Well whaddya know?) For BAIZE, I was thinking of poker, although I think it is more common to say those pots are won rather than made, so maybe snooker works better. I could not figure out how [D]READERS equated to “we fear,” although that seems obvious now.

  10. … But FETTUCINI – with two spelling mistakes? – it’s apparently fine – https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fettucini
    ‘English Noun – fettucini (usually uncountable, plural fettucinis) – Alternative spelling of fettuccini
    2007 January 30, Karen Crouse, “Dash of Success Spices Up Gould’s Neighborhood”, in New York Times?:
    Within a half-hour, Gould (pronounced GOLD) was stirring in pieces of breaded and sautéed chicken, pouring the finished sauce over fettucini noodles cooked al dente and serving one of the newest entrees from his growing recipe file — rustic chicken — to Tanner, his 9-year-old twin brothers, Colton and Austin, and their parents.’
    It even gives Monk’s clue: ‘Anagrams – cut it fine‘

  11. I cannot remember the the last time that I failed to complete an FT crossword, so today marks a special occasion for me.

    12D: Salmagundis”: totally unknown. I’m a musician so was using “medley” in the musical sense.

    14A: “SPONDULICKS”. I thought that this may be a word for some sort of sexual activity.

    3D: I have no idea why “cut” and “best end” have the same meaning.

    25A: My absolute ignorance of billiards made this impossible to complete, even with all the cross letters.

    I think I’ll pour myself a drink!

  12. Thanks for the blog, found this quite tricky but very good clues , agree with KVa@3 that MOB is a very neat idea. I did not know COTEAU but I do know Cocteau so the definition helped me out.

  13. I found this quite a challenge with several unknown words. But BEST END was not one of them . It is the cut of a joint of beef.

    Thanks to Monk for the head scratcher and congratulations to Oriel on an excellent blog.

  14. Best end lamb chops are a CUT of meat.

    [ CRT interlude , the old TV sets were CRTs for many years , until the 90s at least. Has to be a good vacuum or electron beam collides with air molecules . When the vacuum seal fails we say ” the tube has gone ” , need a new TV.
    CRTs still widely used in physics , very important historically. Thomson discvered the electron’s properties, Roentgen iscovered X-rays, Davisson and Germer showed electron diffraction ]

  15. I felt I needed a day off, and realizing Monk was the setter decided the point. Reading the blog, there seemed many clever clues, but so many new words and convoluted clues that I wonder how I would have gone.

    Thanks for the very informative blog, Oriel

  16. Thanks Monk and Oriel. Glad to see that my intelligent guesses all proved correct. (I think there were at least three.)

    3dn: As noted by others whose comments have appeared since I started reading the blog, best end is a cut of meat. Collins 2023 defines it as “the end of the neck of lamb, pork, etc, nearest to the ribs”.

    15dn: fettucini is given as an alternative spelling in Chambers 2016 and Collins 2023, but I could not find it in ODE 2010 or SOED 2007.

  17. Thanks Monk and Oriel

    In 1A I think you need to separate A and TRIFLE, as TRIFLE = TOY seems to me to apply more to the verbs than the nouns.

  19. Thank you Oriel for an accurate and clinical blog, and to all posters so far for the overwhelmingly positive comments. Just popping in to say that, on top of the pangram, there is a pretty large Nina that’s hidden in plain sight 😉 [Maybe Oriel can colour it in later?]

  21. Just when I thought I was finally on Monk’s “wavelength” I hit a brick wall with this crossword. There was too much beyond my orbit such as SPONDULICKS, SALMAGUNDIS, BAIZE, DROGUES, and GROW BAG. Other clues I guessed but couldn’t parse. I did enjoy a few like PEDAGOGUE, NEWNESS, DITCHES, EXCUSED, and MOB, the latter for its neat wordplay. Thanks to both.

  22. Thoroughly enjoyable, as usual from Monk. The pangram helped me finish with SQUIREDOM – not a word I was familiar with, but very do-able. Didn’t spot the Nina, but I see it now and I think Simon S @20 must be right.

  25. Allowing the crossword convention of word / number equivalence, I can see THATS NUMBER IOO.

    I haven’t managed to spot more than that.

  26. Thanks Monk & Oriel.
    Found this hard, not unusual.
    Missed the nina.
    THAT’S A 100, Congratulations Monk!

    Likes: NEWNESS, BEST END, LOG JAMS, BAIZE, GROW BAG

  27. Simon S@25: close, but no cigar, as it’s #159 for the FT! Perhaps just ‘keep on going’ 😉 . Maybe the reference is too obscure 😀

  28. Well, I gave up with about half a dozen to go. What a struggle

    My pleasure came from getting spondulicks very early and also attaboy.

    But it was the lower half of the puzzle where I had my gaps. Not helped by crossing out grow bag as I just couldn’t see how it worked.

    Thank you for explaining. I congratulate everyone that finished.

  32. Seems like this puzzle was just an attempt by the setter to prove that he was smarter than the solver. I’m not sure what the purpose of puzzles like these is, but at least to me they are not at all enjoyable. Given a copy of Collins and a little time many of us could put together a puzzle that would be extremely difficult/impossible to solve, but what would the purpose be?

  33. [PostMark @4: I just noticed the strange coincidence you mentioned. I cannot get through a crossword without writing two or three alternate clues based on words I see. Setters must do the same though that wouldn’t explain such an appearance on the same day.]

  34. @ Jay 32. I tend to agree with you. For me, this has been two days with unsatisfactory puzzles. Unknown words and Byzantine clues. Too clever by half some of them. Strangely, even though I had more gaps at the end of this one than I did with Peto yesterday, I found today the superior crossword. I thought yesterday was poor.

  35. [Tony S @33: I am looking forward to you publishing something, wherever you put it. Folk here know that I cut my setting teeth on mycrossword.co.uk and I would commend it to any aspiring setter who wants a chance to actually assemble a clued grid and see what the world makes of it. Good luck.]

  36. [PostMark @35: I have a crossword ready to publish and I joined MyCrossword. I’m away this week and I want to enter the puzzle on a desktop rather than my phone. Your feedback would most appreciated.]

  37. W. S. Maugham’s Ashenden (1928) seems to be the culprit for FETTUCINI:
    “When you say macaroni, do you mean spaghetti, tagliatelli, rigatoni, vermicelli, fettucini, tufali, farfalli, or just macaroni?”
    He got tagliatelle, tufoli and farfalle wrong too.
    I liked the crossword, though – much more of a challenge than usual. Thanks M&O

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