Independent 9979 / Monk

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The scheduled blogger hasn’t turned up today so here is a belated analysis of the clues.

For those wondering about the Nina in rows 4 and 12 see here. I don’t know if any of the grid entries are relevant because I’ve not read the book.

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Across
1 Shortly leave out rotten egg produce? On the contrary (7)
OVULATE – an anagram (rotten) of LEAV[e] OUT – the ‘on the contrary’ means that the preceding two words need to be swapped to give the definition ‘produce egg’.

5 Version of agitation shunned by society (7)
EDITION – [s]EDITION (agitation shunned by society)

10 Gaelic goddess, archaic but not in an odd way, soon to adopt name (8)
RHIANNON – [a]R[c]H[a]I[c] (archaic but not in an odd way) ANON (soon) around (to adopt) N (name)

11 Wiped out after ages, extremely exhausted (6)
ERASED – ERAS (ages) E[xhauste]D (extremely exhausted)

12 It contains an element of ducking male, not wife, in water (9,6)
IMMERSION HEATER – IMMERSION (ducking) HE (male) [w]ATER (not wife, in water)

13 Plants non-religious personal beliefs (6)
ONIONS – O[pi]NIONS (non-religious personal beliefs)

15 Beatles perhaps push people objectively in audition (8)
FOURSOME – sounds like (in audition) ‘force (push) ‘em (people objectively {them})’

17 Sweet dear swimming into shore (4,4)
PEAR DROP – an anagram (swimming) of DEAR in (into) PROP (shore)

20 Doctor undressed club labourer (6)
DRUDGE – DR (doctor) [c]UDGE[l] (undressed club)

22 Easy task — lad timing a sad song (8,7)
WALTZING MATILDA – WALTZ (easy task) plus an anagram (sad) of LAD TIMING A

25 Engineer‘s old letter stored by British Library (6)
BRUNEL – RUNE (old letter) in (stored by) BL (British Library)

26 Using last of adhesive, reseats cracked tiles (8)
TESSERAE – an anagram (cracked) of [adhesiv]E RESEATS

27 Indonesians maybe talked about depression (7)
MALAISE – sounds like (talked about) ‘Malays’ (Indonesians maybe)

28 Rich women getting fit, going topless (7)
WEALTHY – W (women) [h]EALTHY (fit, going topless)

Down
2 Keenness of machos caught in endless shift (9)
VEHEMENCE – HE-MEN (machos) C (caught) in VEE[r] (endless shift)

3 Cowboy, kind at heart, supporting everybody in recession (7)
LLANERO – [ge]NERO[us] (kind at heart) under (supporting) ALL (everyone) reversed (in recession)

4 Ministers move in a particular direction — south (5)
TENDS – TEND (move in a particular direction) S (south)

6 A river horse about to bite a hunting animal (9)
DEERHOUND – DEE (a river) plus ROUND (about) around (to bite) H (horse {heroin})

7 Defence company returned labels for wrapping containers for Ceylon, maybe? (3-4)
TEA-BAGS – TAGS (labels) around (for wrapping) BAE (defence company) reversed (returned)

8 Daisy‘s over getting cross with peeper (5)
OXEYE – O (over) X (cross) EYE (peeper)

9 Happening to be in zone of fire (3-3)
ONE-OFF – contained in (to be in) ‘zONE OF Fire’

14 Sultriest translated means of multilingual texting? (9)
SURTITLES – an anagram (translated) of SULTRIEST

16 Attacked hospital without, say, many fatalities (9)
MEGADEATH – MADE AT (attacked) H (hospital) around (without) EG (say)

18 Decay reported below building (7)
ROTUNDA – ROT (decay) followed by UNDA which sounds like (reported) ‘under’ (below)

19 Ruth holding hollow glass pen (6)
PIGSTY – PITY (ruth) around (holding) G[las]S (hollow glass)

21 Open, for example, short transaction that’s less than perfect (7)
UNIDEAL – UNI (Open, for example, short {The Open University}) DEAL (transaction)

23 Abandon a missing British vessel (5)
AORTA – A[b]ORT A (abandon a missing British)

24 Wallop! Boxing is where one views the ring? (5)
AISLE – ALE (wallop) around (boxing) IS

7 comments on “Independent 9979 / Monk”

  1. Liked quite a lot of this puzzle but I really think (even though I guessed the answer from the second part of the clue) it’s a step too far to expect to parse ‘nero‘ from ‘kind at heart’.

    10across my top favourite. Thanks to G and M

  2. Well, we got it all without help but failed to see the nina.  Couldn’t parse LLANERO although the answer was obvious, and we don’t think the clue for DEERHOUND works – it implies that someting meaning ‘horse’ has to contain something meaning ‘to bite’ and possibly the letter A as well.  To require one to simply put H inside ’round’ is nonsensical.

    Some good stuff, though.  Favourites were RHIANNON (our first one in) and BRUNEL.

    The surface of 27ac is sadly topical.

    Thanks, Monk and Gaufrid.

  3. Thanks for stepping in, Gaufrid, you still completed the blog long before I completed the puzzle.  Many of the top left corner held me up, and were entered mainly by guesswork.

    I have read one of the Enderby books, but it wasn’t that one, so I don’t know of  the relevance, either.

  4. Enjoyed this and disagree with some of the complaints but this is just opinion. Had to think a bit to parse LLANERO but, when thinking up words meaning ‘kind’, generous came fairly readily. I also have no problem with DEERHOUND. I think ‘bite’ is perfectly acceptable to indicate an inclusion and ‘round’ for ‘about’ is fine. Of course, the wording is intended to misdirect.

    My last one in was SURTITLES, which was a word I didn’t know. Once I had all the crossers, it was the obvious guess.

    Monk often includes ninas and ‘Enderby Outside’ looked promising. I googled to see it is an Anthony Burgess book but, like others, have never read it.

    Thanks to Monk and to Gaufrid.

  5. I loved the puzzle but I have too many other things to read.I thought it might have something to do with Saul Enderby in Smiley’s people.

    So a trip to google filled me in.

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