Financial Times 16,903 by MONK

20 comments on “Financial Times 16,903 by MONK”

1. An uncharacteristic slip by Monk in 15a. Wordplay leads to NEMTOR.

   A few new words for me (as usual). Nice to meet the fox at 18d. Guessed CRU?EIRO for 6d but needed help to get the right ‘unknown’. GOONDA was another straightforward guess – I assume we get GOON from this.

   I took the bottom line CIAO as Monk saying goodbye to a FATHER FIGURE/FRIEND & MENTOR.

2. This was a toughie for me and I needed a few sessions to complete it (as well as the blog for confirmation of a few).
   Didn’t know the ‘da’ part of 21a but didn’t see what else this could be. Likewise 6d which was parsable too. Favourites were 3, 18 and 24 (especially now I see PeeDee’s explanation for the latter).
   Regarding the plant at 3d, however, I parsed it almost as our blogger but for ‘mug’. Here, I had ‘gum’ (sucker) which the climbing applied to said plant.
   A big thank you to both Monk and PeeDee.

3. Hovis@1,
   Well spotted!

4. Hovis – you are right, my explanation of 15ac doesn’t work. I think this must be an oversight from Monk, I couldn’t see the mistake at all.

   GOONDA is an Indian word for a hired thug, GOON is an American word originally meaning a stupid person, from the name of a cartoon character Alice the Goon.

5. That’s interesting PeeDee. Maybe the meaning of “goon” as a hired thug is linked to both.

6. I saw CIAO at the bottom and JAM somewhere else and at least a Q short of thingy.
   Always pleased to see Monk.
   Thanks Pee Dee and Hovis

7. Thanks for the blog, really enjoyed this, put in MENTOR without a thought, well done Hovis, we see what we expect to see sometimes.
   GOONDA is new but well clued – obscure word, clear wordplay is always nice to see.
   Dare I suggest Big Ben is not a clock ?

8. Hi Roz, how about BIG BEN is also a clock (as well as a bell). Words generally have more than one usage.

9. Thanks Monk and PeeDee
   Further to PeeDee @8, both definitions “the tower itself” and “the clock itself” appear in Chambers 2014.

10. Roz @7. I did wonder about that. Of course, Big Ben is really the name of the bell. I tend to object (albeit not strongly) to the name being applied to the tower (the Elizabeth Tower, formerly the Clock Tower) but, as far as I know, there isn’t any separate name for the clock, so Big Ben by extension is fine by me.

11. Tricky in places – I did notice the tribute and the non-working 15a

    Thanks to Monk and PeeDee

12. I should have just kept quiet, I do agree with you all really, just a shame the clock does not have a name itself.

13. Hovis @5 – an interesting idea, so I had a quick look in the OED. The association with hired thugs came nearly 20 years later than the original meaning of “goon” a dull and stolid person (as opposed to a jigger, who is creative and animated). So it seems unlikely they are connected.

    Also, it seems the Popeye cartoon derivation (from Chambers) represented a popularisation of an existing word rather than the derivation of a new word (if indeed the cartoon race of Goons who live on Goon Island and speak the unintelligible Goon language was related to the original goons at all).

14. Looking through Monk’s scientific publications, there is one paper with a co-author called M.I.G. Bloor, who was in the Department of Applied Mathematics at Leeds University. This matches the initials across the top of the puzzle, so I’m guessing this is the dedicatee.

15. Wow, Tom. That’s some sleuthing.

16. I see on google that he died on 27 August this year.

17. Not too difficult for a Monk puzzle. We saw CIAO in the bottom unches and wondered if there was more, so thanks to contributors for pointing it all out; that explains the unusual grid pattern.
    Thanks, Monk and PeeDee.

18. Many thanks to PeeDee for blog and to all for comments.

    Profuse apologies for 15A: one of only two slips in ~17.5k published clues over 30 years, so on balance a better safety record than driving! I note that the puzzle on my hard drive backup has 15A as “Guide followers by hill” but alas I submitted the one on my USB backup, which I’d edited at the 11th hour against all my better judgment. That said, there is an editing process 😉

    The eulogy has been fully sussed in the blog. My life, and that of many others, is the poorer for the loss of this wonderful, unique Renaissance Man, who was a supremely talented yet modest giant amongst men 🙁

19. Generally I skip crosswords by Monk because I find them too difficult for my ability level and only do the Guardian on that day. The Guardian, however, had one by Mudd’s evil twin Paul so I thought I’d give Monk a shot. I rather enjoyed this even though I had to resort to a word finder more often than I like. DISRAELI was a favourite. Thanks to both.

20. Thanks Monk and PeeDee
    Another puzzle that spilt across a couple of days, with the majority of it done whilst watching another mini-series on TV (a bad habit picked up after numerous COVID-based lock downs). Did need more than the usual use of word finders to find new terms – GOONDA, NEUTRINO and CRUZEIRO. The parsing of many of the clues was a challenge enough in its own right.
    FENNEC was one that did float up from the depths though and was happy to remember it from the clever clue.
    Finished in the top half with GERANIUM (another cleverly misdirected clue), ACTION and INCUBI (which I had guessed much earlier but didn’t enter it because it was so devilishly hard to justify from the word play).
    Did spot most of the nina – FATHER FIGURE, FRIEND, MENTOR and CIAO. Couldn’t make sense of MIGB and would never have made the tenuous link to the setter’s co-author of mathematics papers from the 1970’s – a nice touch when it is explained.

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