I found this a fairly gentle (but enjoyable) workout from Monk…
…with a Nina to boot – although I only spotted it as I struggled to get my last one, 2D DIVE, in…
(Mental note to self – all those single cells around the perimeter must be a pretty strong indicator that something is going on out there…)
My solving notes don’t show any particular issues, except that I hadn’t encountered ‘ONE IDEA’D’ before – it was gettable from the wordplay, and indea’d, there it is in Chambers…under ONE.
And of course 2D. I had convinced myself it must be NINE – ‘cube’ – until I spotted the Nina, and it had to be a D – so DICE – C, or see, in DIE = cube(s). Luckily, I didn’t DIVE in and ink that in, and the penny eventually dropped:
My notes also had a few ticks/exclamation marks for clever surface readings: 4D with a pleasant holiday hot-air balloon ride over Everest – YOU BET!; 16D with the old ‘bill’ being accommodated in their ‘jam sandwich’/SQUAD CAR; 17A with a ‘vigorous’ solver getting a flu shot – I wish I was still vigorous and YOUTHFUL!; and the ‘minions, etc’ worried about their OMNISCIENT master in 5D.
As for the Nina – a bit of a Vienn-in-a: ‘…this means nothing to me…’ I did see some stuff ‘trending/going viral’ recently about ‘Laurel and Yanny’ but, a bit like the ‘what colour is this dress’ thing, I bah-humbugged and ignored it!…And I wasn’t even tempted by this impressive feat of grid construction to follow it up belatedly!
Thanks to Monk, and hopefully all is clear below…
(Update – correction from Hovis et al below – 7D should have the American (mis)spelling – LICENSE PLATES)
| Across | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 6A | NOTIONAL | Speculative one stopping off, so to speak, by a loch (8) | speculative / NOT_ON (off, so to speak) around (stopped by) I (one), plus A + L (loch) |
|
| 8A | ORMOLU | John collaring man about uniform’s decorative coat? (6) | decorative coat / ORMOL (LO_O – john – around – collaring – MR – man, all turned about) + U (uniform) |
|
| 10A | NUKE | Instrument placed on nitrogen bomb (4) | bomb / N (nitrogen) + UKE (ukulele, instrument) |
|
| 11A | INCH BY INCH | Imperceptibly close to cutting 5.08 cm (4,2,4) | imperceptibly / INCH_INCH (two inches, so approx 5.08 cm) around (cut by) BY (close to) |
|
| 12A | ATHENE | Articles about heartless Eurasian goddess (6) | goddess / A + TH_E (two articles, indefinite and definite) around EN (heartless E |
|
| 14A | NOTECASE | Mark having to produce non-U wallet (8) | wallet / NOTE (mark, take heed) + CA( |
|
| 15A | BOUNDLESSNESS | Snobs duel when ordered by head — no limits apply in this state (13) | no limits apply in this state / BOUNDLESS (anag, i.e. when ordered, of SNOBS DUEL) + NESS (headland, cape) |
|
| 17A | YOUTHFUL | Vigorous solver getting flu shot — that’s not so bad (8) | vigorous / YOU (the solver!) + THFUL (anag, i.e. bad, of FLU ( |
|
| 19A | URTICA | Nettle sting I regularly scrat, removing top (6) | nettle / ( |
|
| 21A | REARRESTED | Again seized back and leaned on (10) | again, seized / REAR (back) + RESTED (leaned on) |
|
| 22A | LAIR | Retreat from 13, going north (4) | retreat / LAIR = part of ‘equatoRIAL’ (13D), reversed, or going north |
|
| 23A | ON CALL | Ready to work at any time, almost every (2,4) | ready to work / ONC( |
|
| 24A | SEA LEVEL | Of average height, in the main (3-5) | CD? / SEA LEVEL is the average height, at sea, or ‘on the main’ |
|
| Down | ||||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
|
| 1D | YOGURT | Food basket extremely oily when upset (6) | food / TRUG (basket) + OY (extreme letters of O |
|
| 2D | DIVE | Hole, see, inside cube (4) | hole (disreputable nightspot) / DI_E (cube) around V (vide, Latin, see!) |
|
| 3D | ONE-IDEAD | Obsessive, perhaps, working late to circumnavigate eastern island (3-5) | obsessive / ON (working) + DEAD (late), around (circumnavigating) E (eastern) + I (island) |
|
| 4D | YOU BET | Certainly, float over Everest on vacation (3,3) | certainly / YOU_B (buoy, or float, over) + ET (E |
|
| 5D | OMNISCIENT | Knowing everything, minions etc. worried (10) | knowing everything / anag, i.e. worried, of MINIONS ETC |
|
| 7D | LICENSE PLATES | Dodge, say, registration using forged clientele pass (7,6) | Dodge (American make of car, or American city, hence the US spelling of LICENSE), say, registration / anag, i.e. forged, of CLIENTELE PASS |
|
| 9D | LOCUSTS | They swarm surface, maybe covering stone (7) | they swarm / LOCU_S (surface, maths) around (covering) ST (stone) |
|
| 13D | EQUATORIAL | I cycle round in match on a great circle (10) | on a great circle / EQU_AL (match) aroiund ATORI (I + ROTA, or cycle, all round) |
|
| 15D | BOOLEAN | Briefly guide into benefit of a certain logic (7) | of a certain logic / BOO_N (benefit) around LEA( |
|
| 16D | SQUAD CAR | The bill for transport accommodated by this? (5,3) | this! / a SQUAD CAR provides transport for policemen, or ‘the Bill’! |
|
| 18D | FEEBLE | Lame cattle put up on sale — just 50%? (6) | lame / FEEB (beef, or cattle, put up) + LE (50% of saLE) |
|
| 20D | CRIMEA | America almost bombed disputed territory (6) | disputed territory / anag, i.e. bombed, of AMERIC( |
|
| 22D | LIEU | Place Israel over and above Brexit issue (4) | place / LI (IL, Israel, International Vehicle Registration abbreviation, over) + EU (one of the issues – or the only issue?! – at the heart of Brexit) |
|
Lovely stuff, as usual, from Monk. Didn’t know ORMOLU or URTICA and used a word fit to get the latter.
For 7d, I read DODGE as referring to the Kansas City, since the answer need LICENSE (the US spelling).
I failed on 2d, writing in an unparsed DICE (for C in die). Never think of V for ‘see’.
Spotted the Nina and did look it up at the time it was going around.
Thanks to Monk and mc_rapper67.
We too failed by putting ‘dice’ instead of DIVE, but otherwise completed it. Spotted the nina but it didn’t mean anything to us – for anyone else still mystified there’s an explanation here.
Favourites were INCH BY INCH, YOUTHFUL, EQUATORIAL and SQUAD CAR.
Thanks, Monk and mc_rapper67.
In 7d I think “Dodge” refers to the American car marque, but as Hovis says @1, the answer needs to be LICENSE PLATES to fit the anagram. That’s an American expression anyway. In the UK we usually call them number plates.
Re: ‘Dodge’. I think Tom@3 and our esteemed blogger are correct that it refers to the car. I’m not good with car names, much less where they are manufactured, so my mind went to the phrase ‘get out of Dodge’.
Thanks for the comments feedback…I’m rather mortified, rather than esteemed!, to have got that LICENSE PLATES anagram wrong…damn those pesky Americans and their silly spiellings…
(I suspect Dodge the US car make is more generic than Dodge the specific US location, but either explanation holds weight as an indication of a US spelling..)
Anyway, I have corrected the parsing of the anagram – not sure I have the time/energy to correct the animated grid.
interesting that a couple of you also struggled with DICE/DIVE – although as this is no longer a prize puzzle it is a tad academic as to whether it is completed correctly…apart from our own pride, which in my case has taken a slight dent to the fender…
Laurel – although the split in the family between the Yanny hearers and those who are right has caused much hilarity.
mc_rapper67: brilliantly crafted blog, thanks; and ta too to other bloggerettes. When I first found the clip online I heard “Laurel” every time and thought Mrs Monk was pulling my leg when she said she heard “Yanny”. So I recorded it directly from the PC soundcard and emailed the resulting mp3 to a friend, on whose iPad I Mr and Mrs Monk’s hearing experiences were reversed :O So the following seemed reasonable …
If you use (e.g.) Audacity to amplify the clip and then zoom in on the waveform, and then compare it to, say, some music lyrics, the L/Y clip seems to have a high-frequency substructure to the primary waveform. So I’m guessing that both words have been cleverly interspliced and that, due to the time-delay inherent in ear-to-brain processing, one can “hear” only one of the two forms on any occasion. Of course, the A N Other who made the clip knows exactly what’s afoot!