Where does the time go when you are not busy? Once again we have a Saturday puzzle to blog – it only seems a few weeks ago when we blogged the last one.
We normally really enjoy a Monk puzzle but neither of us can work out why this didn’t hit the spot today. 1ac was a great start – we loved the surface reading. There were a couple of new words – ANKYLOSED and DUNGEONER, both of which were easy to sort out from the anagrams. We also had to check the spelling of the fruit in 11ac. Maybe we were put off by the fact that we had EARPLUGS for 15d until we eventually figured out our LOI – 23ac.
An anagram of BITE LUNCH – anagrind is ‘organised’
OLD (former) BEAN (head)
An anagram of UNDONE ERGo – missing last letter or ‘almost’. The anagrind is ‘out’.
LEECH (parasite) and EdiblE – first and last letters only or ‘skin’
IrritatinG (first and last letter only or ‘extremes’) in ROLE (part) and OTT (too much) reversed or ‘backtracking’
A cryptic definition – R AND R is defined in Chambers as ‘rest and recreation’ but doesn’t mention any specific link to the military (service) – our understanding is that it is a phrase that originated in the military, but is now used more generally, as inferred by Chambers
An anagram of CATHOLICS and TERESA – anagrind is ‘mess with’
CIRClE (group) without ‘l’ (left)
An anagram of LEAD and YONKS – anagrind is ‘to melt’. The definition is related to the fusion of bones.
SUN – a homophone (‘caught’) of ‘son’ (boy) + BURN (brook)
LEFT (sinister – from Latin) OVERS (elements of a test – in cricket)
Hidden (partly) and reversed (turned back) in shIRT SEAMs
THE (article) on HE (ambassador) inside or ‘stopping’ ENSA (WWII entertainers)
BLERiOT (old aviator) after NO (number) without ‘i’ or ‘dropping one’. We’d never heard of the mould which forms on over-ripe grapes producing the richness of certain wines.
D (died) inside or ‘crashing into’ E (European) BERG (mountain). Stefan Edberg was a Swedish tennis player.
An anagram of RACHEL LOVES (anagrind is ‘bubbly’) inside WOMEn (females) missing last letter or ‘most of’. The definition relates to the gospel/protest song composed by Pete Seeger which according to Wikipedia is derived from a hymn – ‘I’ll Overcome Some Day’ by Charles Albet Tindley.
IN (during) DEN (study) T (first letter off trainee)
A sort of clue-as-definition – AND (also) inside ROOT (grub) reversed or ‘served up’ + I (one)
A cryptic definition – ‘kippers’ being sleepers
LENIN (old Bolshevik) around or ‘pressing’ E (Eastern) + CE (church)
B (British) ORDER (command)
Not our favourite clue I am afraid. We had EARPLUGS in first until we realised that it had to be EARMUFFS – both answers fit the rather vague clue (the ‘organs’ being ears), but we went for ‘plugs’ to fit with ‘connected’ in the clue. Two adjacent unchecked letters in the grid didn’t help.
A cryptic definition as a SEAT BELT is found in a car – which could be an ‘estate’
An anagram of TONED – anagrind is ‘up’ inside an anagram of AIR – anagrind is ‘fresh’
COL (pass) LIE (porky)
KISS (light touch) and MadamE (first and last letters or ‘hem’) – we hadn’t heard of this type of veil before
SHUT (to – as in closed) I (Italy) around or ‘welcoming’ F (France)
I feel that this choice of unfriendly grid was for a reason but can’t see anything.
My first guess was also EARPLUGS but left it until I could get more crossers. I am aware of the medical condition “ankylosing spondylitis” so was aware of 19a but still took a bit of working out.
Although I knew of Blériot, I cheated with a word fit to get NOBLE ROT, a new term for me.
Needed Chambers to confirm that “quick” is an archaic term for pregnant. Never sure whether archaic terms should be allowed but probably not listed as archaic in other dictionaries.
Thanks to Monk and Bertandjoyce.
Came here for a bit of relief from a Guardian Prize with which I’m struggling and was pleased to complete the grid, albeit with two mistakes along the way. nho ANKYLOSED and had the Y and the O transposed, hoping it meant fused. Should’ve checked somewhere. And I had initially put TOMMY ROT for 1d and, when it became clear it was wrong – it never seemed right tbh – the mind just didn’t come up with NOBLE. The clue is super, though, with a very clever use of Bleriot.
Not the easiest of puzzles and a number of parsings escaped me. I’m still not sure why IN THE CLUB means quick. Quick can mean living but ‘in the club’ means pregnant (to me). I would have spelled LEECHEES with a ‘y’ instead of the first ‘ee’. I’d never heard of a DUNGEONER but, as B&J observe, that one was easy enough from the anagram. KISS ME as a veil was a bung and pray and EARMUFFS is definitely a bit meh and the weakest clue of the day.
That said, I had a number of delights along the way; I suspect the definition element of EDBERG might have been used before but it’s very neat and I was pleased to identify it correctly. LEFTOVERS was nice and, again, I was lucky to hit on the right interpretation of sinister. Both ELECTRIC BLANKET and SEAT BELT made me smile, LENIENCE has a lovely surface but COTD goes to TANDOORI which is absolutely to notch as both clue and supper!
Thanks Monk and B&J whose help I needed on several occasions today
Thanks, Hovis, for explaining quick. If, like me, you Googled before turning to Chambers, you’ll have seen there’s a TV programme called In The Club which, unfortunately, dominated the search.
Noble rot, I was aware of. If anyone’s interested and hasn’t Googled, it causes water to escape from the grapes, thus concentrating the sweetness and intensifying the flavour of the resulting wines. Many of the world’s sweet wines – German/Austrian with the name Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese, Hungarian Tokay and, I think, French Sauternes – use the technique. And German Eiswein is made from grapes that have not only gone through this process but frozen too.
We found this a good challenge, just about at the limits of our abilities. Thanks, Monk! Everything went in eventually, but (as others have said), we didn’t know quick = pregnant, wrongly guessed ANKOLYSED, and hadn’t seen the spelling LEECHEES. (For the latter, Chambers gives 5 different allowable spellings – is this a record?)
Similarly to others, our first thought was also EARPLUGS for 15d, but then we thought that there must be more to it than that. Now that we’ve seen the answer EARMUFFS, I still think there must be more to it than B+J and PostMark @2 have indicated, not least because I think of earmuffs as being for warmth rather than noise suppression (though I do see that the latter is recognised in Chambers). I hate to say this, but … muff = organ??
Thanks to B+J for the blog and starting the discussion.
well not a fantastic morning so far… agree with Bertandjoyce about the “hitting the spot thing”.. for me it was too many convolutions in some clues.. if there was more than one choice of jesters beginning with R and ending in O I’d still be guessing now, similarly with TANDOORI, does “around” mean “at the end” now?… however there was some really nice stuff , 7dn, 18dn, 14ac,19,1c,18ac, 25ac…. but not encountered “caught” as a homophone indicator which slowed things down a bit.. also the use of 20dn escapes me.. I’d love an example ..?
thanks Bertandjoyce and Monk
I think DavidO might be onto something with the unsavoury muff=organ. Ears make it plural anyway, but that would add to the plurality and account for both syllables. I seem to think quick =pregnant features in many a Shakespearean pun but, even in lockdown, I’m not planning to check the complete works! Had to check ankylosed and kiss-me. Collie was cute, and I liked Rigoletto and tandoori, among others. Thanks to Monk and Bertandjoyce.
Well, I enjoyed it all, including 15D, which seemed straightforward, though I’m not sure enough of my terms to say whether it’s a CD or an &lit. My only query is whether at 6D just ‘heating’ would have been better and simpler than ‘re-heating’. Once again, the SE corner was a struggle – does anyone else experience this? My theory is that, logically, that’s where setters come to last, and they too find it difficult to make words fit. Thanks Monk and B&J.
undrell @5. “around” isn’t signifying “at the end”. It is signifying the inclusion. So, root = grub, served up then gives toor and “around” says this goes around “and”. This is then followed by the “i” in the clue. Hope this clarifies matters.
Whoops! Meant to say the “one” = i from the clue.
Maybe Monk has just got a NEW BORDER COLLIE named TIA? Lovely puzzle, thanks S & B’s
jmac. I think you could well be right.
1d We knew noble rot but were complaining about the parsing because we were sure the aviator was Nobile and couldn’t work out “rot”. Never thought there might be another aviator who fits the bill.
thanks hovis@8&9.. just about got it now.. takes a while cheers