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Monk is often on the tough side. Or so I thought before tackling this.
The first half dozen or more clues I tried from the top left corner all seemed accessible. Within a short while the whole top half was complete.
So I thought I was going to polish this off in record time.
I was led into a false supposition.
Where did my woes begin?
Answer 13d. Or rather, the wrong answer for 13d.
When I had first, third and last crossing letters, B.O…..T, I whacked in BLOODSHOT from the def. It seemed reasonable for very ‘flushed’.
Inevitably, this stumped me for 20a and 24a.
I hadn’t fathomed the wordplay that would deliver BLOODSHOT so after a while I returned to it and was very pleased to spot that excellent ‘brief daytime kip’ giving us SIEST[a], and learn that ‘Blowsiest’ can also mean red-faced.
The next thing to go wrong was 17d.
When I had the first and last crossing letters, I…..L, I whacked in ILIACAL from the def. bolstered by the ‘in Illinois’ wordplay.
I thought I knew a thing or two about hip bones – but there are more than I thought: Wiki diagram
That gave me the wrong crossing letters for 20a and 24a.
The next thing to go wrong was 20a where I spotted SPIDERY would fit the crossers, and had a vague relationship to the internet and the World Wide Web.
What followed took at least a half hour to untangle.
I still had no good solution for 24a.
It was only when I concentrated on why there was the ‘…’ ellipsis that I spotted the wordplay involved the answer from 21a. I suggest this is really very tough.
So then that blew away the answer I’d put in for 17d.
Which in turn, when I studied dem bones and got ISCHIAL, blew away my Spidery answer at 20a.
It felt like I was treading water.
At least I’m happy to have understood the wordplay for 17d which fits that final answer.
The same is not true for 20a which could be completely wrong.
So help please with 20a
And as usual there may be other things wrong in all this.
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | RIO | Port wine from Spain, 60% of it (3) RIO[ja] (wine, 3/5 of it) |
| 3 | LIVELIHOODS | Crusts, extremely hard, start to soften with olive oil spread (11) (H[ar]D S[often] OLIVE OIL)* AInd: spread. Got from wordplay. Then for the definition had to think before remembering the phrase “to earn your crust” which is equivalent to “to earn your livelihood” |
| 9 | OPIUM | Disgust when daughter yields to soft drug (5) ODIUM (disgust) swap D for P, D[aughter] / P (soft) |
| 10 | TURPITUDE | Depravity of curt highwayman given semi-freedom (9) TURPI[n] (highwayman, Dick Turpin, curt / curtailed) [lati]TUDE (freedom, half of) |
| 11 | TRAITOR | Judas Priest’s last run — top-notch nonsense, on reflection (7) [pries]T (Priest’s last) R[un] AI (A-One, topnotch) ROT< (nonsense, on reflection) |
| 12 | AVOIDED | Shunned promo surrounding video nasty (7) AD (promo) around (VIDEO)* AInd: nasty. |
| 13 | BRAZIL NUT | Unknown newly formed tribunal protects tree (6,3) (Z (unknown) + TRIBUNAL)* AInd: newly formed. |
| 15 | LOIRE | European capital once outside old part of France (5) LIRE (European capital once, currency of Italy before Euro) around O[ld] |
| 16 | ODIST | “God Is” — thus pens poet (5) Hidden in ‘gOD IS Thus’ |
| 18 | DISMISSAL | Notice small girl face crowds (9) S[mall] and MISS (girl) inside (crowded by) DIAL (face) |
| 20 | SOCIETY | Association that may pursue Internet café building? (7) Def.: Association. This may be incorrect. It seems to be the only word that fits the crossing letters (now I believe I have those correct). I certainly cannot fathom the wordplay. |
| 21 | RELIANT | Having trust, priest interrupts tirade … (7) ELI (priest) inside RANT (tirade) |
| 24 | ELIMINANT | … when tipped about minister promoting riddance of toxic waste (9) The ‘…’ ellipsis is doing some heavy lifting here: [r]ELIANT (answer to 21 elided from, tipped) around MIN[ister] |
| 26 | CLIVE | Historic general caught on air? (5) C[aught] LIVE (on air) Ref. Clive of India . I was suckered into supposing it was a homophone from ‘caught’ |
| 27 | TELEKINESIS | Will causing stir in TV family with sibling on Ecstasy (11) TELE (TV) KIN (family) E (Ecstasy) SIS (sibling) |
| 28 | KID | Tease youngster (3) Double Def. |
| Down | ||
| 1 | ROOST | Initially reels out old scores to settle (5) First letters of ‘Reels Out Old Scores To’ |
| 2 | OKINAWA | Pacific battle‘s fine, mostly from one point of view (7) OK (fine), IN A WA[y] (from one point of view, mostly) |
| 3 | LIMIT | Drunk crosses motorway verge (5) LIT (drunk) around MI (M1, motorway) |
| 4 | VETERANS DAY | Amend year’s-end VAT for 11th of November in the US (8,3) (YEAR ENDS VAT)* AInd: Amend. |
| 5 | LOR | Starts to lose one’s rag — blimey (3) First letters of ‘Lose One’s Rag’ |
| 6 | HOI POLLOI | Ordinary people wanting current vote in Ohio resolved (3,6) I (current) POLL (vote) inside HO…OI from (OHIO)* AInd: resolved. |
| 7 | OPUS DEI | Souped up international Catholic organisation (4,3) (SOUPED)* AInd: up, then I[nternational] |
| 8 | SPEEDWELL | Career fortunate for Veronica (9) SPEED (career) WELL (fortunate). Speedwell is a common name for the flower Veronica Wiki link |
| 12 | ALTOSTRATUS | Intermediate-level cover at last sent out with tours (11) (AT LAST … TOURS)* AInd: sent out. |
| 13 | BLOWSIEST | Squander brief daytime kip, getting maximally flushed? (9) BLOW (Squander) SIEST[a] (daytime kip, briefly). One of the definitions of Blowsiest is Red-faced. |
| 14 | IN THE PINK | Where stamen of dianthus is enjoying good health (2,3,4) Double Def., one a cryptic def, referring to the position of the stamen inside a Dianthus (aka Pink) flower Wiki link |
| 17 | ISCHIAL | Foreign character, American in Illinois, checks onset of shooting from the hip? (7) CHI (foreign character) A[merican] preceded by S[hooting], all inside IL (Illinois). |
| 19 | SEASICK | Nauseous, as we say, intermittently, so back to work (7) Alternate letters from ‘aS wE sAy’, SIC (so) [wor]K |
| 22 | LUCAS | HE authority supports termination of educational director (5) UCAS (HE authority) after [educationa]L Ref. George Lucas |
| 23 | TWEED | With time, maybe dock material (5) T[ime] WEED (maybe dock – dock, the plant, is a weed) |
| 25 | AWN | Lapwing regularly dropped bristly growth on grass (3) Alternate letters of ‘lApWiNg’ |
SOCIETY can follow each of the 3 words
https://www.internetsociety.org/ — https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/caf%C3%A9_society — https://www.nationwide.co.uk/
Thanks FrankieG @1. Couldn’t see that but can now. Agree with BM that the top half went in easier than the bottom. Enjoyed the puzzle though. CLIVE was my LOI. Good clue. Elsewhere ALTOSTRATUS and SEASICK took my fancy. Thanks for the blog BM and thanks Monk for the puzzle. Liked it.
Had to check ‘internet society’ and ‘cafe society’ existed and also that ISCHIAL was a word. A minor (?) point on the parsing for 13a. I don’t think Monk is the sort that would use such an indirect anagram. I parsed as Z (unknown) inside (‘protects’) the anagram of ‘tribunal’.
My ‘comment is awaiting moderation’ @1 so… Internet Society (.ORG)…
...café society…
…building society.
I’m with Hovis on the parsing of BRAZIL NUT – Z inside an anagram. I did actually find this more approachable than Monk can sometimes be, not falling into the pitfalls that distracted our blogger. However, even with all the crossers, I managed to fail to find the correct anagram fodder for ALTOSTRATUS. I’m not sure I’d agree that the ellipsis is doing heavy work in the clue for ELIMINANT; the device is often used when there is a link between surfaces but this appears to be be of the (reasonably rare) occasions when it is being used properly at the cryptic level and referring to the previous solution. Neatly done – and so much nicer than a cross reference. I liked the definitions for TELEKINESIS and LIVELIHOODS.
Thanks Monk and beermagnet
(Meant “@2” not “@1” @5) …
… Liked 21a RELIANT … | … 24a ELIMINANT
Parsed 7d OPUS DEI with the definition as just “Catholic organisation”, else the I is doing a double shift.
Thanks M&BM
Tough in places but another enjoyable solve. In addition to the splendid word in 10a, it also includes my late mother in law’s favourite exclamation in 5d
Many thanks to Monk and beermagnet
I had the same feeling as our blogger when the NW and then most of the top half went in readily only to get bogged down in the bottom half… it ended up feeling a bit inconsistent, but that’s an individual perspective I think.
Alas I had to reveal ELIMINANT and the second half of OKINAWA; also ISCHIAL which was the kind of form and meaning I had predicted but was to lazy to look up. I figured out the nho BLOWSIEST from the B and SIEST (we’ve had the latter device recently in the exact same grid position IIRC – made even more coincidental by the fact we’ve also had BRAZIL NUT recently and in the same position too, In think…tho I could be mixing it up with the Guardian); and I got SOCIETY from the checkers without parsing it – I suggest that one was quite tough, though I like it.
The device for ELIMINANT was above my pay grade, though I thoroughly approve of what PostMark@7 says. But since so often the ellipsis is used just for surface sugar it didn’t occur to me to use it as a superior cross-reference.
Favourites were AVOIDED, DISMISSAL and TELEKENESIS.
Thanks both!
As beermagnet said, pretty much… didn’t spot the subtlety of the ellipsis, till after the fact, which was too late by a long way. Tried to use NA- as the brief kip, with predictable results… SOCIETY just allowed the crossers to make sense, turned out to be correct… phew! So… classic game of two halves, but still a decent way of spending time on a dull Saturday morning…
Thanks Monk n beermagnet, especially for the honest blog..
As beermagnet said, pretty much… didn’t spot the subtlety of the ellipsis, till after the fact, which was too late by a long way. Tried to use NA- as the brief kip, with predictable results… SOCIETY just allowed the crossers to make sense, turned out to be correct… phew! So… classic game of two halves, but still a decent way of spending time on a dull Saturday morning…
Thanks Monk n beermagnet, especially for the honest blog..
Thanks both. I knew what SOCIETY was telling me, but only knew the building variety, and am left to wonder if ‘internet society’ is an expression or simply an organisation. I have learned today that CLIVE of India was Robert Clive, though I can’t find anything confirming him as a general, however major-general of the Bengal army is suggested.
Most of this went in very quickly indeed for a Monk, until ELIMINANT and ALTOSTRATUS (lovely def) held me up. Then I was left with a gnawing sense of dread that I would know neither the director nor the general… It took a moment of inspiration to parse CLIVE (indeed unknown), after which LUCAS came quickly. No excuses for the latter, as I know both the director and the HE regulator! More of a tussle than I expected for a while, but a good challenge in the end.
Thanks both.
Monk is a guarantee of a classy puzzle whether it be difficult or not quite so difficult.
Faultless surfaces guaranteed
Oh and CLIVE stirred distant memories
Thanks Monk and bm.