Monk makes a welcome appearance this weekend. He now only appears in the Indy four times a year and it is more than two and a half years since we last had the pleasure of blogging one of his puzzles.
We rattled through the clues on the NW corner in no time at all…. and then ground to a halt. The rest of the puzzle took a lot more teasing out, but once we were back on Monk’s wavelength we managed to finish it in reasonable time.
We had not come across the entries at 2d and 16d before and we had to check what was special about a ‘Rechabite’ in 24ac. We learn something every day in crosswordland!
Monk’s puzzles are often themed – but we can’t see anything here – are we missing something?
Hidden (‘block of’) in zINC IS Easily
A homophone (‘picked up’) of NECKED (kissed) ‘ER (‘Cockney lass’ – ‘her’ missing the ‘h’)
D DAY might be the signature of Doris Day (US actress)
An anagram (‘unexpectedly’) of GAINING ALL
LAPS (circuits) between E E (earths)
An anagram (‘bent’) of BRUmMIE missing the middle letter or ‘heartless’ after CH (first two letters of Charlie’s)
RECONDITe (obscure) missing the last letter or ‘mostly’ + IrONING (domestic chore) missing the ‘r’ (resistance)
An anagram (‘getting sacked’) of gROVELLING missing either of the ‘g’s or ‘sides’ (one-sided) and WHY ME
SIZE (measure) WELL (reservoir) – the Suffolk village better known for its nuclear power stations
S (last or ‘ultimate’ letter of dogs) AVerAGE (mean) missing ‘er’ (sign of hesitation)
An anagram (‘absurd’) of SCARE in or ‘stopping’ WICK’S (Scottish town’s)
gOgGlEs (alternate or ‘regular’ letters) round or ‘covering’ L (left)
A clue-as-definition: A TT (teetotal – apparently a Rechabite does not drink alcohol) in RED (wine) – RATTED = drunk
DRUM (house – we had to check this) UP (before judge?)
INDUs (river) missing the last letter or ‘most of’ + alternate (‘on and off’) letters of cLoGgEd – could this be a reference to our rivers being polluted by the privatised water companies?
An anagram (‘concocted’) of CYPRUs missing the last letter or ‘largely’ – not a familiar phrase for us
TIP (gratuity) in SEND (dispatch)
ELGaR (composer) missing the ‘a’ + ECO (Umberto Eco – ‘novelist’)
An anagram (‘dealt with’) of ILL NATURE
Double definition, although we weren’t convinced about the second meaning – is ‘in the running’ the same as ‘in the lead’?
An anagram (‘messed up’) of CHECK WHAT CLOT
OVERT (open) round or ‘spanning’ R and EXE (two rivers)
OLIVER (stage musical) round or welcoming’ I (international) – a reference to Laurence Olivier, the internationally renowned English actor who died in 1989
WEE (‘number one’ – urinate) FREE (missing) – another new phrase for us – apparently the name given to members of the Free Church of Scotland following the union in 1900 of the Free Kirk and The United Free Kirk – isn’t religion strange?
MISsUS (wife) missing one of the middle letters or ‘half-hearted’ + EveR missing the middle letters or ‘gutted’
LEGS (limbs) LIP (cheek) – a fielding position in cricket
ROOM (space) after (‘below’ in a down clue) V (middle letter or ‘centre’ of driving)
A big thanks to Monk for the Nina, or perhaps it’s an acrostic. Helped me get over the line, especially with SIZEWELL. Of the others, ILANG-ILANG, TELLURIAN and WEE FREE – phew!
Thanks again to Monk and to B&J
INDIE CROSSWORD
My hot faves:
NECTAR, RECONDITIONING and RATTED.
Thanks, Monk and to B&J
RUNNING
As a noun, it means ‘the lead’ (in the sense of ‘management’). Or isn’t it accurate?
A fair bit of GK in this one. Thought OGLE a strange clue, involving the deletion of one “L” and the insertion of another, a bit weak in my opinion.
Lots to like though despite a lot of deletions/insertions and being a touch anagram heavy, my picks being NECTAR, RATTED, LEG SLIP and VROOM.
Thanks Monk and B&J.
Thanks to WordPlodder for pointing out what we had missed – the first letters of the across answers spell out exactly what KVa included in his first comment.
Sorry to post a general question in today’s puzzle but not sure where else.
Does anyone have methods for solving Independent crossword on Android phone? I can log on and initially start solving in the website via arkadium but after ten minutes or so bugs start to appear and with fifteen to twenty minutes it is unusable (and that’s too quick for me to finish even in a good day).
Is there a favoured browser combination or similar which is stable?
Foolishly convinced myself that the answer to 4 across was PECTIN ( pecked (h) en ) so left NE unfinished, missing out on 7 down.
Also came to the blog for 16d (never heard of it) so very much a DNF for me but enjoyed the puzzle as usual from Monk. Thanks all
Thanks Kva and thanks Monk(there is nearly always somethimg between the lines.
Matthew Newell@7 try downloading Independent app on PlayStore.. it was a long time ago, but I think that’s how I got it…
Good puzzle.. usually i struggle with Monk, but pretty much as Bertandjoyce said it… I failed the “look-at-the-first-letter-of-all-the-across-clues” test yet again. Didn’t seem to spoil the pleasure..
Thanks Monk n Bertandjoyce
All I know of Rechabites is from the Para Handy stories. Apparently they’d give you 20 shillings if you fell down the stairs, even if no one saw you do it; Dougie was one, but only when he was at home.
Matthew Newell@7 – I started having this problem a couple of months ago. I had put it down to lack of memory on my relatively old phone, Going into the settings and turning off the timer has helped a bit.
Great crossword, topped-off by mention of Para Handy in the comments! Thanks all.
Thanks Undrell and DuncT. Will persevere and try all options
I had problems on chrome. I despaired as i am not compute literate. I tried using Firefox and it works .
Thanks Bertandjoyce and Monk.
Excellent puzzle!
Missed the acrostic, though.
Thanks for suggestions – the app worked (not sure how I missed that there was one).
Tough crossword in my view. More stretches than I am used to and a few NHOs.
Thanks Setter and Blogger ( help in parsing really was necessary today)