Financial Times 16,185 by MONK

16 comments on “Financial Times 16,185 by MONK”

1. In 14a, I took “report of war” to indicate homonym of Waugh.

   In 18a, BR is BowleR extremely and W is “wide”.

   Wasn’t sure of 26a. Best guess is “volatile memory” and that memory can be a commemoration of folk who were alive but are no longer.

   27a All Reasons at the outset gives AR which in full form gives answer.

   Think your explanation for 17d is fine.

   Thanks to Monk and PeeDee.

2. Oh, I meant to say “minds” in 4d is “looks after” not “looks”.

3. Thanks to Monk and PeeDee..crikey this was tough.

   I think that in 18, “br” comes from “bowler extremely” ie the outside letters. In 27, AR is the abbr for the state of Arkansas (in full form). 17d ONLOOKER…I think “observer” is the def and that a (bit of a) “looker”  ie someone who can draw (attention). In 4, IN TWO MINDS, minds=looks after

   Great stuff.

4. Hovis 1 Bärchen 0 in the speed-typing stakes

5. Monk on very good form today – lots of fun coupled with some proper cryptic brain-stretchers

   By the time I’d looked at PeeDee’s questions, the speed typists had beaten me too – so I’ll just thank you to both him and Monk

6. Thanks for the suggestions, I will update the blog shortly.  How could I have missed Waugh and War?

   In the effort to get something sensible out I forgot to look for the Nina.

7. Dunno about a nina, but there’s random access memory in there, and a twelve string guitar.

   Thanks Monk, PeeDee

8. Took me ages but worth the effort. Nice to see the old name for mighty York-was it not a city then?

   Someone should write a random access memory blues on  a 12 string guitar and include the words CHEEKY and MOONBEAMS

   Thanks Monk PeeDee and everyone else here.Brightened up the day.

9. 17d the definition is “observer”. A person who can draw is a looker (draws a crowd)

10. Thanks to PeeDee and Monk

    Tough but enjoyable

    26a 3 words which identify types of memory – VOLATILE, FOLK and LIVING + def – COMMEMORATION

11. As to 26ac:   yes, that’s it, Dansar.   You hit the nail on the head.

    I remember Monk doing things like this before. A pity though that there’s a lot of ‘memory’ in ‘comMEMORation’.

12. Thanks Dansar.

13. I have updated the blog.  Thank you all for your help but I am still struggling to get a clear explanation for ARKANSAS.

14. What Hovis @1 said.  All reasons at the outset is AR.  AR is the abbreviation for Arkansas.  Put AR in full form to get state.

15. I get it now – “out the outset” indicates “first letters of” not “at the start of the solution”.

16. Thanks Monk and PeeDee

    Wow … this could’ve been a John Henderson puzzle, with this level of difficulty (and to a certain extent style of clue) !  It took me numerous sittings across several days to finally fill the grid … and even more time to work out some of the trickier parsing.

    Every clue was a gem in it’s own right.  The variation of device, a few unknown words along with the sneaky definitions were probably the things that stretched the mind and length of time of the solve.

    Thought that LUNCH BOX was pretty lame at first until I looked up and found the British slang meaning of both it and ‘meat and two veg’ – hadn’t heard of either of those terms to describe that part of the anatomy !  Had a bit of trouble with ARKANSAS too for a while – seen it clued using KANSAS as the other state – but just had to simplify the thinking to just getting the abbreviated AR.

    Finished in the SE corner with PUBLICAN (with it’s camouflaged definition), ULTIMA (a new term which took ages to understand the word play) and ENOSIS (only found by a word finder and another term that I’d not come across).   Hard but satisfying to get done …

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