Monk has supplied this week’s Thursday teaser. It is a while since I have blogged a puzzle by Monk, and I always find his work challenging.
This puzzle was no exception, and it gave me a lot of head-scratching, and also plenty of enjoyment, along the way. Thankfully, I found some of the longer entries relatively accessible and thereby received quite a few intersecting letters.
My favourite clues today were 16, for the two-step wordplay; 17, for making me smirk; 18D, for originality (assuming I have understood it correctly!); and 19, for smoothness of surface.
Incidentally, the perimeter of the completed grid spells out, reading clockwise from the bottom left, MORE HASTE, LESS SPEED. Spotting this mid-solve provided me with a couple of extra initial and final letters.
*(…) indicates an anagram; definitions are italicised; // separates definitions in multiple-definition clues
| Across | ||
| 06 | OLIVER CROMWELL | General memory satisfactory on musical copyright
OLIVER (=musical, by Lionel Bart) + C (=copyright) + ROM (=memory, in IT) + WELL (=satisfactory); Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) was a general on the Parliamentary side in the English Civil War |
| 09 | EPISODAL | OAP’s idle fancy brought in as a digression
*(OAP’S IDLE); “fancy” is anagram indicator; episodal means brought in as a digression in a narrative |
| 10 | GULAG | Extremely unusual silence besets camp
U<nusua>L (“extremely” means first and last letters only are used) in GAG (=(to) silence); a gulag was a labour camp in the former Soviet Union |
| 11 | REWRAP | Charge after soldiers primarily wanting cover once more
RE (=soldiers, i.e. Royal Engineers) + W<anting> (“primarily” means first letter only) + RAP (=(criminal) charge, colloquially) |
| 12 | MINUTIAE | Brief note about contents of big, fat trifles
<b>I<g> <f>A<t> (“contents of” means middle letters only) in MINUTE (=brief note, as in to take the minutes) |
| 13 | EXPANSION SLOT | Boisterous sons to explain access for improving PC facilities
*(SONS TO EXPLAIN); “boisterous” is anagram indicator; in IT, expansion slots allow expansion cards or boards to be connected to a computer to allow extra facilities to be added |
| 16 | OUTWEIGH | Be more significant than unconventional, swapping parts in audition
WAY-OUT (=unconventional, eccentric); homophone (“in audition”) of “out way (“swapping parts” means two parts of word are switched round)” |
| 18 | DISCOS | Dances round in circles
O (=round, pictorially) in DISCS (=circles) |
| 20 | LEECH | Large, hollow, mostly genuine ancient bones?
L<arg>E (“hollow” means all internal letters are dropped) +ECH<t> (=genuine, authentic; “mostly” means last letter is dropped); according to Chambers, “leech” is an archaic word for physician |
| 21 | AVENGERS | Deploy nerve gas those dishing out retribution
*(NERVE GAS); “deploy” is anagram indicator |
| 22 | METEOROLOGISTS | Perhaps forecasters satisfied with revamped Tories logos
MET (=satisfied, e.g. conditions) + *(TORIES LOGOS); “revamped” is anagram indicator |
| Down | ||
| 01 | HOOPOE | Ring old English bird
HOOP (=ring) + OE (=Old English); a hoopoe is a crested bird with salmon-coloured plumage |
| 02 | AIRSTRIP | Voices tense epitaph whereon one could be earthbound?
AIRS (=voices, expresses, e.g. a view) + T (=tense, in grammar) + RIP (=epitaph, i.e. Rest In Peace); one could be earthbound making a landing on an airstrip |
| 03 | SEND-UP | Beginning to slump, finish spoof
S<lump> (“beginning to” means first letter only) + END UP (=finish) |
| 04 | TWILIT | Dim idiot swallowing lithium
LI (=lithium, i.e. chemical symbol) in TWIT (=idiot) |
| 05 | ELEGIAST | In Orient, I set up mournful poet once
[LEG I (I + GEL (=set, i.e. harden); “up” indicates vertical reversal) in EAST (=Orient); “elegiast” is an older spelling of elegist |
| 07 | CALL ME ISHMAEL | Still he emails rubbish about Left’s novel opening words
L (=left) in [CALM (=still, quiet)+ *(HE EMAILS)]; “rubbish” is anagram indicator; “Call me Ishmael” are the opening words of Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby-Dick |
| 08 | ORGANON | Off and on, courage soon exposes instrument of thought
<c>O<u>R<a>G<e> (“off and on” means alternate letters only) + ANON (=soon); in philosophy, an organon is a method of investigation |
| 13 | EQUALLED | Cried with new top, so made uniform
SQUALLED (=cried, yelled); “with new top” means first letter is replaced |
| 14 | NEITHER | Lower current cuts – not at all
I (=current, in physics) in NETHER (=lower, as in nether regions); as an adverb, neither means not at all, in no case |
| 15 | LAST-GASP | In post-revolution China, stumped by boastful talk done in desperation
[ST (=stumped, on cricket scorecard) + GAS (=boastful talk)] in LAP (PAL=China, in rhyming slang; “post-revolution” indicates vertical reversal); a last-gasp attempt is made in desperation |
| 17 | WEE-WEE | Number one weakling not quite getting hold of sheep
EWE (=sheep) in WEE<d> (=weakling; “not quite” means last letter is dropped); if you for go a number one, you go for a wee-wee! |
| 18 | DREDGE | Apparatus for bringing up matter literally making medic nervous?
DR (=medic) on EDGE (=nervous; “literally” means letters “dr” sit on “edge” in the grid!) |
| 19 | OGRESS | Giant advance following release of equitable voting system?
<pr>OGRESS (=advance); “following release of equitable voting system (=PR, i.e. proportional representation)” means letters “pr” are dropped |
Goodness! I seem to have been writing ‘Goodness’ rather often over the last couple of days. With Io, Imogen and now Monk across recent GIFT puzzles, the solving brain is certainly getting a midweek workout. That said, I did not find this to be Monk at his toughest – well, I finished the puzzle and pretty much everything parsed so it can’t have been! GULAG, DISCOS, LEECH, TWILIT, NEITHER, WEE-WEE and DREDGE were my favourites.
Thanks Monk and RR (esp for the commendably early blog which is much appreciated)
On 7D: it’s CALM + (HEEMAILS)* with L inside, no?
7d CALL ME ISHMAEL – needs CALM = “Still”. [Edit – as Mallimack@2 has just pointed out]
Didn’t know LEECH was an old doctor or ‘squalled’ meant ‘cried’ but I do now. Liked LAST-GASP which fell into place quickly crossers and the definition. I needed to see the blog to clarify. Thanks RR & Monk.
All in and parsed pretty much, but I got CALL ME ISHMAEL from some of the crossers and enough anagram fodder to not look for the CALM (the joy of solving without blogging).
It took me ages to see OLIVER CROMWELL, but it all made sense when I got it.
Thank you to Monk and RatkojaRiku
Always nice to be able to get on Monk’s wavelength, as I did here. Managed to get Oliver Cromwell and Call Me Ishmael quite quickly and Meteorologists was pretty easy. This gave me a lot to build on but still needed a bit of thinking to finish it off. Although I wouldn’t equate “discs” and “circles” (the first being 2D and the second 1D, as the boundary of the first) but they are probably used to mean the same thing in common parlance.
My apologies for the incomplete parsing at 7, now amended – how did that get past the proofread, I wonder?!
Tricky… not helped by EPISODAL not appearing in online Collins nor in OED, well, they quoted 1 archaic use in 1870.. obviously the anagram was what it was, but, if I have used the word before, it wasn’t to mean digression. Not sure I’ve come across TWILIT either, and pretty sure NEITHER isn’t interchangeable with ‘not at all’.. having said that there was a certain joy in seeing DR on EDGE.. the anagrams were a relief although I had to check the first words, it being about 60 yrs since I read Moby Dick. Some clues were OK like 1d, 2d, 3d, 5d and I certainly wasn’t going to quibble about ‘discs’ as I actually saw that one early..
Thanks Monk n RatkojaRiku
Monk is my one my favourite setters and this crossword only reinforces that view. The clues were excellent as well as the helpful Nina. My top picks were GULAG, DISCOS, TWILIT, LAST-GASP, and DREDGE. Thanks Monk, and RR for the blog.
[TS @9: should read, “… is one of my …” My brain must have been drained after completing the crossword.]
Excellent puzzle with the nina assisting its completion
Thanks Monkand RR