Financial Times 17,741 by MONK

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An enjoyable challenge from Monk.

Thanks Monk – a great puzzle with a good range of clue types. Nothing too obscure, although a couple of new words for me (often the case). I always enjoy original ways of clueing (e.g. 21a or 3d) and Monk has a great knack for setting quite tricky but ultimately solvable puzzles.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1. Monocle, say, decking the outdated girl (8)
EYEGLASS

E.G. (say) decking YE (the, outdated) + LASS (girl)

6. Nonsense surrounds development of epic muscles (6)
BICEPS

BS (nonsense) surrounds EPIC* (*development of)

9. Said bounder exercises right to have established character of Express? (6,4)
RUPERT BEAR

“ROO” (bounder “said”) + PE (exercises) + RT (right) + BEAR (to have)

10. Credit for pollarding Japanese shrubs (4)
UDOS

[k]UDOS (credit, for pollarding)

11. Left after a chap informally offers recess (6)
ALCOVE

L (left) after A + COVE (chap, informally)

13. Changing hands, art house that’s dreadful nevertheless (8)
ALTHOUGH

ALT (ART, changing hands; i.e. change R (right) to L(left)) + HO (house) + UGH (that’s dreadful)

14. Isn’t commonly opposed to shifting one (4)
AINT

ANTI (opposed to) shifting I (one)

15. Evil lady goes topless subsequent to rants about sin (10)
TRANSGRESS

[o]GRESS (evil lady, topless) subsequent to RANTS* (*about)

17. Key drug in fruit engenders inactivity (10)
QUIESCENCE

(ESC (key) + E (drug)) in QUINCE (fruit)

20. Maximum offence taken in speech (4)
PEAK

“PIQUE” (offence taken, “in speech”)

21. Clapped-out, broken priest backsliding into fraud (8)
DECREPIT

P+R< (priest, broken, <back) sliding into DECEIT (fraud)
I think I have this right: PR is the abbreviation for PRIEST. We need to break it up into P+R so the letters are separated and then ‘slide‘ these backwards into the word DECEIT

23. Held forth split dictionary covers (6)
ORATED

RAT (split); OED (dictionary, Oxford English Dictionary) covers

24. Recognised landscape when escaping from trap (4)
SEEN

“SCENE” (landscape, “when escaping from trap”)

25. Busy magazine (7,3)
PRIVATE EYE

Double definition

For definition 1: ‘Busy’ is slang for detective

27. Amorous rendezvous in street succeeded following test (6)
TRYSTS

(ST (street) + S (succeeded)) following TRY (test)

28. Execute banter, repulsed by curt cad (8)
GARROTTE

RAG< (banter, <repulsed) by ROTTE[r] (cad, curt)

DOWN
2. Eulogy, off and on, uplifted solver? (3)
YOU

[e]U[l]O[g]Y< (off and on, <uplifted)

3. Is broadcast guest drunk when hosting Oscars now and then? (4,3)
GOES OUT

GUEST* (*drunk) when hosting OO (Oscar, Oscar: NATO alphabet) now and then

‘Now and then’ tells us the Os will be spread out within the anagram

4. Genuine gold article linked to endless lure (9)
AUTHENTIC

AU (gold) + THE (article) linked to [e]NTIC[e] (lure, endless)

5. In hospital, encountered ace composer (7)
SMETANA

(In SAN (hospital): MET (encountered)) + A (ace)

6. Broke open ribs, gutted in bar (5)
BURST

R[ib]S (gutted) in BUT (bar)

7. Gully caught ball before you see one run (7)
COULOIR

C (caught) + O (ball) before U (you) + LO (see) + I (one) + R (run)

Phew

8. Ignoring backside in hour-glass shape possibly leaves wedge-like object? (11)
PLOUGHSHARE

(HOURGL[ass] SHAPE)* (ignoring ASS (backside), *possibly)

12. Perhaps tracksuit garland found on certain river (11)
LEISUREWEAR

LEI (garland) found on SURE (certain) + WEAR (river)

16. Old lizard’s self-esteem stopping Truss bumbling round America (9)
STEGOSAUR

EGO (self esteem) stopping (TRUSS* (*bumbling) around A (America))

18. Bishop & Son supports English missions (7)
ERRANDS

(RR (bishop, Right Reverend) + AND (&) + S (son)) supports E (English)

19. Pin catches narrow zip (7)
NOTHING

NOG (pin) catches THIN (narrow)

20. UK rock band identified with person’s missing daughters (7)
PLACEBO

(PLACE[d] (identified) + BO[d] (person)) missing D+D (daughters)

22. Annalist’s case for peace process you’ll support initially (5)
PEPYS

P[eac]E (case for) + P[rocess] Y[ou’ll] S[upport] (initally)

26. Still going up bottoms of best people? Absolutely (3)
YET

[bes]T [peopl]E [absolutel]Y< (bottoms of, <going up)

24 comments on “Financial Times 17,741 by MONK”

  1. Rattled through this quite quickly. Got COULOIR & UDOS from the wordplay then had to check them and had to guess that PLACEBO was the name of a UK rock band. Liked the deceptive “when escaping from trap (mouth)” for a homophone indicator.

  4. Nearly everything went in which, for me with a Monk, is unusual. NHO PLACEBO as a band and did not come up with the right homophone for the interlinked PEAK which made those two tricky. And then I failed to marshal the correct combo of fruit, key and drug – out of the many options available – to solve QUIESCENCE. Everything else did, as Hovis says, rattle in so I’m somewhat disappointed not to spot those three. Some very nice surfaces and some neat constructions. EYEGLASS, ALTHOUGH, SEEN, GOES OUT, AUTHENTIC and NOTHING were my top ticks today.

    Indeed, well spotted FrankieG – no idea how you always see these things.

    Thanks Monk and Oriel

  6. …oed.com has no entry for BICEP, but does have six quotations misusing it.
    I’m outnumbered by the New York Times; the Sunday Telegraph; Sir Kingsley Amis (Girl, 20); New York; Men’s Health; the Washington Post; and Monk.

  8. FrankieG. I’m still struggling to get over the fact that “dice” is now the accepted replacement for “die” and cringe every time somebody pronounces H as “haitch”. I think the latter pronunciation is now more common. Also, pronouncing “nuclear” as “new cue ler” is taking over. Ah, the wonders of language.

  9. Thank you Oriel for let another lovely blog, but this early visit is to apologise profusely a.s.a.p. for the glitch spotted by FrankieG@5. Mea culpa: the version of this puzzle on my hard disk has ‘muscle’ — as I knew only too well following my excruciating distal biceps tendon rupture in January 2023 — but the non-final backup version on my USB has the non-updated ‘muscles’ (cf “bicep curls”) that I irritatingly submitted.

    Also it was a lovely surprise to discover that the (correctly identified) song was 50 years old, but it’s here as it comprises part of a bigger Nina alongside two has-been DJs 😉

  10. Thanks Monk and Oriel

    6ac: Collins 2023 has “biceps n, pl -ceps“. ODE 2010 says “(pl. same)”. The clue would have been equally good with the singular “muscle”, but no better. No apology is necessary.

  13. Thank you, the ever-redoubtable PB@10 but, TBH, recalling my surgeon’s comment of “a good biceps extension“, I had indeed intended the singular “muscle” [confirmed by Chambers] so never went on to check the other sources.

    Indeed, FG@12! YASNY was their theme song 😀

  14. Incidentally, how is bicep as a back-formation any more wrong than pea? It is just more recent, that is all. (Written before I saw comment 13 from Monk:) I wish to qualify the final sentence of comment 10. Of course, we should welcome an apology for the fact that the submitted version was not the intended one, but I stick to the point that no apology is necessary for the supposed error in the printed version.

  15. PB@10
    BICEPS
    I wonder why Chambers hasn’t mentioned anything about the plural form.

    YOU AIN’T SEEN ANYTHING YET (So apt to describe my theme-spotting ability).

  19. Thanks for the blog , really good set of clues, Frankie @2 thanks for a great spot.
    A minor quibble, a STEGOSAUR is not a lizard, despite the Greek root , all dinosaurs were Archosaurs, a separate group to lizards within the reptiles.

  20. Excellent puzzle, which I got through much quicker than most by this setter, only to spend ages before Ploughshare finally fell with a big DOH.

    Thank you.

  21. Thanks Monk for an excellent set of clues with ALTHOUGH, AINT, TRANSGRESS, QUIESCENCE, AUTHENTIC, and YET being my favourites. I missed UDOS and the BTO song; I couldn’t parse PLACEBO. Thanks Oriel for the blog.

  22. Thanks to FrankieG for spotting the hidden words. And thanks also to Monk for popping over to give us the extra info on the Nina. Brilliant stuff.

  23. Monk can be tricky but this was all done and dusted without help, only needing to check PLACEBO via Google as we’d never heard of the band.
    Thanks, Monk and Oriel

  24. This was tricky for me but I got everything other than lights that were just unknown to me like Rupert bear, udos, placebo, etc! Learned stuff!

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