Financial Times 17,716 by MONK

by

Always a pleasure to see Monk’s name appear.

A somewhat gentle but very enjoyable challenge. Some wonderful surfaces, and original wordplay.
Not sure about some of the hyphens in the definitions, but that is neither here nor there. Many thanks to Monk and hope to see you here again soon!

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. Scowl about rating work (6)
LABOUR

LOUR (scowl) about AB (rating)

5. Cutting small investigation (8)
SHEARING

S (small) + HEARING (investigation)

9. Finally, sound barrier broken — it’s unique (4,4)
RARE BIRD

([soun]D BARRIER)* (*broken)

10. Make out, having classic sex in feast? (6)
DIVINE

VI (classic sex) in DINE (feast)

‘Sex’ is the Latin ‘six’, i.e. classic, and brings us to Roman numerals

11. The majority of men on speaking terms to begin with (4)
MOST

M[en] O[n] S[peaking] T[erms] (to begin with)

12. Actors helping removal in theatre? (10)
CASTRATION

CAST (actors) + RATION (helping)

13. Scoring which you’d paradoxically relinquish aim (4,4)
DROP GOAL

Cryptic definition

To drop the goal would be to relinquish the aim, which is paradoxical because a drop goal does the opposite – it scores

15. Origin of some Kurdish tribal revolutionary (5)
BIRTH

[Kurdis]H TRIB[al]< (some, <revolutionary)

16. Skilfully handle participants (5)
FIELD

Double definition

18. Farewell from curt janitor that’s parted and rejoined anew? (4,4)
TAKE CARE

CARETAKE[r] (janitor, curt) parted, and rejoined anew – i.e. split the word, and put it back together differently

20. Share everything, rotating most important Mexican food (10)
ALLOCATION

ALL (everything) + (NO I (most important, number one) + TACO (Mexican food))< (<rotating)

22. Ape takes cover, dropping article (4)
COPY

C[an]OPY (cover, dropping AN (article))

24. Accepting greeting, strip buttocks (6)
BEHIND

Accepting HI (greeting), BEND (strip)

25. Equally divide energy drinks? (2,6)
GO HALVES

GO (energy) + HALVES (drinks, referring to half pints)

26. Beginning to advance Republican, say, Yankee plan (8)
STRATEGY

START (beginning, to advance R (Republican) i.e. move the R forward) + E.G. (say) + Y (Yankee, NATO alphabet)

27. Right accounts missing introduction (6)
TORIES

[s]TORIES (accounts, missing introduction)

DOWN
2. Repeatedly curtailed fashionable mission (5)
ALAMO

A LA MO[de] (fashionable, repeatedly curtailed, i.e. curtailed more than once)

3. Roofless old enclosure corporation cocked up (4-3)
OPEN-TOP

O (old) + PEN (enclosure) + POT< (corporation, <cocked up)

For ‘corporation’ think ‘pot belly’

4. Unexpectedly uncordial portent of downfall (4-5)
RAIN-CLOUD

UNCORDIAL* (*unexpectedly)

5. Team, aquiver, checking grass in a hysterical manner (4-11)
SIDE-SPLITTINGLY

SIDE (team) + TINGLY (aquiver) checking SPLIT (grass)

6. Source of down clue I derided to some extent (5)
EIDER

[clu]E I DER[ided] (to some extent)

7. Terse, exhausted Dee perhaps embraces Rosie, for one? (7)
RIVETER

T[ers]E (exhausted); RIVER (Dee, perhaps) embraces

For the Wikipedia article on Rosie the Riveter, click here

8. Nobody else thereon — on manoeuvres (4,5)
NONE OTHER

(THEREON ON)* (*manoeuvres)

14. Beaming about mostly stuffed bloke (9)
REFULGENT

RE (about) + FUL[l] (stuffed, mostly) + GENT (bloke)

15. Recklessly go in centre of Turkish bath, scorching (6-3)
BAKING-HOT

(GO IN [tur]K[ish] BATH)* (*recklessly)

17. Pornography books Heather hides (7)
EROTICA

OT (books, Old Testament); ERICA (Heather) hides

19. Moose, caught up in estate, maybe one crying raucously (7)
CACKLER

(ELK (moose) + C (caught))< (<up) in CAR (estate maybe)

We tend to think of cackling as laughing in human terms, but for animals it is crying

21. Lead fitting hides early sign of dry rot (5)
ADDLE

LEAD* (*fitting) hides D[ry] (early sign of)

23. Bug peerage on vacation with First Lady (5)
PEEVE

P[eerag]E (on vacation) with EVE (first lady, Biblically)

19 comments on “Financial Times 17,716 by MONK”

  1. Thanks for the blog, good set of clues , neat and clear wordplay throughout.
    For BEHIND I did wonder about bend= strip, thought of bend-sinister which is a strip used in heraldry.

  4. As Oriel says, this must have been a gentle puzzle from Monk as I could complete it in my jet-lagged state.
    I was unsure how ‘bend’ (band?) meant ‘strip’ but I think Roz is onto something with bend-sinister. Nor was I familiar with Rosie the Riveter (thanks for the link, Oriel) but the wordplay was as clear here as it was throughout the grid. FIELD, my last one, took a while but it was a good double definition. SIDE-SPLITTINGLY was very helpful early on. My favourite was COPY.
    Thanks to Monk and Oriel.

  5. Rosie was unknown to me so one of the last to drop and the construction was very slightly serpentine; I’m not unhappy with it but it took a moment to appreciate the ordering of the elements. Yes, it must have been an easier Monk than usual as I managed to finish without aid. Classic sex held out for a bit – contributing to the slow solve for RIVETER.

    I suspect it is coincidence but there was more than one reference to apportioning – GOING HALVES, ALLOCATION, ‘helping’ etc. SHEARING, DROP GOAL, TAKE CARE, RAINCLOUD and CACKLER were my favourites.

    Thanks Monk and Oriel

  6. Maybe I was just tired, but I found this rather hard. I still do not see how split = grass or bend = strip?

  8. Cineraria @ 6

    Split and grass are both synonyms for informing on

    A bend is a diagonal strip on a shield / coat of arms

  9. Cineraria @6, I am less confident with bend = strip, other than Roz’s earlier suggestion. But I saw split and grass as synonyms in the sense of inform upon someone.

  10. Thanks Monk and Oriel

    24ac: Chambers 2016 includes “a band, strip; a parallel band crossing a shield diagonally from top left to bottom right” among the definitions of bend as a noun. Collins 2023 has a separate headword for the heraldic meaning: bend² “an ordinary consisting of a diagonal line traversing a shield”. ODE 2010 is similar to Collins.

  11. For bend, oed.com has ‘1. † A thin flat strip adapted to bind round. 1.a. Old English–1794
    †     A riband, fillet, strap, band, used for ornament or as part of a dress; a sash, swaddling-band, hat-band, bandage; = band n.2 I.1– I.5. Obsolete or ? dialect.
    This corresponds to Chambers 1993 ‘…; a band, strip ;…’ – Monk didn’t need to read past the semi-colon for the heraldic meaning.

  12. I forgot that I consider Monk too time consuming for a weekday and jumped in. I managed to get the right hand side fairly quickly, but needed more time on the left. I was unable parse everything. I had similar problems with the obscure words mentioned above (grass, split, and Rosie to start). Then I did not know a janitor is called a caretaker and there was no way I would ever see “a la mo[de]” for “fashion repeatedly curtailed”, so thanks for the steer, Oriel.

    I agree there were of nice surfaces, my favourites being EROTICA, BAKING HOT, BIRTH, EIDER, and NONE OTHER.

    Thanks Monk and Oriel

  13. Didn’t get 21d, so DNF for me, but I enjoyed this. Thank you to Monk and Oriel, especially for parsing “Divine” and “Riveter”

  14. All good fun, thanks to Monk. I wasn’t fazed by bend for strip, but did raise an eyebrow at “unique” for RARE BIRD: not really synonymous, I think, but near enough in crossword-land, I guess.

  15. Thanks Monk.
    Good puzzle with DIVINE, TAKE CARE, STRATEGY and ADDLE making my list.
    Saw LABOUR and TORIES on the left and right.

  16. Thank you Oriel for yet another great blog, and to all others for taking the time to solve and comment. It’s the closest Monkish approach (in the FT setting cycle) to the Election, so, as has been spotted, we have LABOUR and TORIES symmetrically disposed, respectively to the left and right, of the central SIDE-SPLITTINGLY. Moreover, on the ‘left’ we have [LEFT]-MOST, -FIELD and -BEHIND, with symmetric counterparts to the ‘right’ in DIVINE-, BIRTH- and COPY-[RIGHT]. TBC, there are no result predictions in the Nina! 😀

  18. I got stuck for a while in the SE corner because of 19d, for which I entered CARIBOU – CAR (= estate), I (= maybe one), plus BOU (= crying, with raucously as the aural wordplay indicator). I still think it’s a good answer.

    Lots to like in this puzzle, so many thanks to Monk and Oriel. Favourites were 18a TAKE CARE for the clever construction, 4d RAIN-CLOUD for the excellent one-word anagram, and 14d REFULGENT, just because I like the word.

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