Great stuff as usual from Monk, and not especially difficult (for Monk). Thank you Monk.
Anticlockwise around the outside of the grid is JOHNNERS AGGERS LEGOVER GIGGLES which is a reference to a moment in the history of cricket commentary. Commentators Brian Johnston and Johnathon Agnew collapse in giggles after realising too late the sexual innuendo they have inadvertently broadcast describing how Ian Botham (with a reputation as a womaniser) “removed the bail with inner part of his thigh before getting his leg over”.
| ACROSS | ||
| 8 | JINNEE |
Jack by bar emptied expensive spirit (6)
|
| J (jack) with INN (bar) and ExpensivE missing middle letters (emptied) | ||
| 9 | SPRINGER |
Dog’s odds initially double (8)
|
| SP (starting price, odds) followed by (with odds initially) RINGER (double, a lookalike) | ||
| 10 | OPERATOR |
Speculator caught out in corporate manoeuvring (8)
|
| anagram (manoeuvring) of cORPORATE missing (out) C (caught) – one who deals in stocks | ||
| 11 | EXPOSE |
Show attitude after English vote (6)
|
| POSE (attitude) following E (English) X (a vote) | ||
| 12 | HIGH POINTS |
Marshal hoping to break strikes – the best bits? (4,6)
|
| anagram (marshal) of HOPING inside (to break) HITS (strikes) | ||
| 14 | DERV |
Fuel dumped in Calder Valley (4)
|
| found inside (dumped in) calDER Valley | ||
| 15 | NYMPHET |
Speed unit stopping still – on tail of Hillman Minx? (7)
|
| MPH (speed unit) inside (stopping, like a cork) YET (still) all following (on) hillmaN (last letter, tail of) | ||
| 17 | MAESTRO |
Unopened drinks players returned – genius! (7)
|
| pORTS (drinks) tEAM (players) both missing first letters (unopened) and then reversed (returned) | ||
| 20 | NEAR |
Extremely negative answer left for driver (4)
|
| outer letters (extremely) of NegativE AnsweR – of the the near-side (as opposed to the off-side) for a car driver on UK roads | ||
| 22 | THICKENING |
Accumulating starch, say? (10)
|
| a sort of cryptic/double definition – getting fatter and a thickening agent, for gravy perhaps | ||
| 24 | EGG-BOX |
One for carrying over broadcast (3- 3)
|
| “over” sounds like (broadcast) “ova” (an egg), so you would use an EGG-BOX to carry this – sort of hybrid clue, part wordplay and part cryptic definition | ||
| 25 | BIRDCAGE |
Maybe Polly’s home time changed after ditching HND (8)
|
| BIRD (time, prison sentence) then ChAnGEd missing (after ditching) HND | ||
| 27 | RECLINER |
Half checks out ship’s comfy chair (8)
|
| RECces (checks out, half of) then LINER (ship) | ||
| 28 | GRAVEL |
Mallet for crushing river stones (6)
|
| GAVEL (mallet) contains (for crushing) R (river) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SIMPLIFY |
Reduce in complexity provided that small hint is circulated (8)
|
| IF (provided) inside (that…is circulated, sent round) S (small) IMPLY (hint) | ||
| 2 | ENARCH |
Rarely graft in European ranch when drunk (6)
|
| E (European) then anagram (when drunk) of RANCH – rarely indicates and archaic word | ||
| 3 | LEFT |
Pulled out permit to circumvent fine (4)
|
| LET (permit) contains (to circumvent, go around) F (fine) | ||
| 4 | G STRING |
Good way to enclose air on this? (1- 6)
|
| G (good) ST (street, a way) then RING (to enclose) – Bach’s Air on a G-String (or G String) | ||
| 5 | GREENSHANK |
Bird’s fresh meat cut (10)
|
| GREEN (fresh) and SHANK (cut of meat) | ||
| 6 | IN SPADES |
Wearing suit to a greater extent (2,6)
|
| IN (wearing) SPADES (a suit) | ||
| 7 | GEYSER |
Spring in Guernsey’s awful when sun about to disappear (6)
|
| anagram (awful) of GuERnsEY missing (to disappear) SUN – about indicates that the missing letters are not in order | ||
| 13 | OVERTAXING |
Public cutting possible outcome of HMRC estimate? (10)
|
| OVERT (public) and AXING (cutting) | ||
| 16 | PARABOLA |
Almost directly opposed horse entering curved track? (8)
|
| POLAr (directly opposed to, almost) contains (with…entering) ARAB (a horse) | ||
| 18 | RENEGUES |
Renounces a female visitor for undressing (8)
|
| iRENE GUESt (Irene guest, a female visitor called Irene) missing outer letters (undressed) | ||
| 19 | LIMBURG |
Briefly grumble about one former duchy (7)
|
| anagram (about) of GRUMBLe (shortened, briefly) contains (about, used twice?) I (one). My explanation does not quite work, can anyone do better? | ||
| 21 | EAGLES |
Learn about collecting silver large $10 coins (6)
|
| SEE (learn) reversed (about) contains (collecting) AG (silver) L (large) | ||
| 23 | NICKAR |
Pick up this marble for a quid (6)
|
| NICKAR (this marble, the solution) sounds like (picked up) “nicker” (a quid, one pound) | ||
| 26 | RAGE |
A little cottage garden promoted in Vogue (4)
|
| found inside (a little of) cottagE GARden reversed (promoted, sent upward) – in vogue, all the rage |
I thought it was tricky for a Monk (or perhaps it is just I’ve done too many crosswords this morning and worn out the cryptic grey matter. I did spot the Nina but not in time to help much
Thanks to Monk for another great crossword and PeeDee for the blog – I agree with you that ‘about’ in 19d seems to be doing double duty
I seemingly had a very similar solving experience to crypticsue. Can this episode of Test Match Special really be more than 30 years ago? Good grief!
Thanks to Monk and PeeDee.
I went to print off the FT and the Guardian crosswords this morning to be presented with the daunting sight of Monk and Enigmatist as the setters. I decided to tackle the Monk here first.
This was hard enough with a couple of new words in NICKAR and ENARCH and some maybe not so well-known GK for LIMBURG (missed ‘about’ being used twice) and GREENSHANK. I found the required letter removals for MAESTRO and RENEGUES particularly tricky. Favourite was EGG-BOX, for the novel homophonic def.
Thank goodness for the Nina which helped with the recalcitrant last few answers and bought a smile at the end.
Thanks to Monk and PeeDee
Well. I found this too hard so congratulations to the blogger and all who finished.
I could not follow in 27ac how “checks out “give RECESS or how to reach Irene Guest from a “female visitor” in 18d. As for NICKAR in 23d my Shorter OED gives Nickar as an early form of Nicker. I cannot see the connection to marble. Lovely Nina though.
Never tire of That Clip.
Excellent reward for what I thought was quite a tough Monk.
I’m never quite sure whether a Double Duty word (surely deliberate here)is A Bad Thing or a Good (as in much-admired &lits).
Whatever, good puzzle, thanks to both.
SM @4 – under “nicker” Chambers gives:
2. The round seed of…used for playing marbles (also nickar)
Hi Grant – as you say it is not that rare to see a word being used in both the definition and the wordplay. Extended definitions and & lits are the obvious examples, but not the only ones. What seems very unusual is for a word to be doing doubly-duty in the wordplay alone. It seems unlikely to me that Monk would have done this deliberately.
Thanks for the blog, very thorough, I thought this was very good but totally missed the perimeter.
SM @ 4 Chambers gives NICKAR as a clay marble.
LIMBURG does not quite work – ….. about one IN former duchy ….. would solve the problem.
Very minor blog glitch – 21D large =L is next to AG in EES
Hi Roz – the most recent Chamber only gives nicker and knicker as a clay marble. The nickar spelling is only listed for the seed.
PS. Thanks for spotting the missing L in 21dn, fixed now.
All the buses came at once today
Eccles great in Indy
Then E in the Graun
Who can follow that? Like going on after the Small Faces and the Who
Who? Why Monk of course with a tremendous winding nina
Great day-thanks all!
We crossed earlier , just checked again , mine is 93, it is very messy .
NICKAR has see Nicker 3… clay marble ( knicker ) , round seed etc ( also NICKAR ) .
So your marble is the correct one.
Thanks PeeDee . Although the Shorter OED is pretty comprehensive it seems to have been lacking this definition. My Chambers is only the Student’s version.
I am still scratching my head over Irene Guest and recess though.
SM@4
27 A ‘recce’ is ‘check out’ (reconnaissance short). Recces (not recess): checks out. Half of RECCES is REC.
18 D How to reach…? A bit difficult to answer. Maybe you hit at guest first. Maybe renegues itself. Depends on the crossers, on how you go about checking out various fits…… female visitor could be MARY CALLER some other day. 🙂
23 D Others have clarified.
PeeDee and Roz@8OED has knicker” a boys marble of baked clay” but not as nicker let alone nickar. Enough said about this!
I am fairly new to this community. Could someone tell me why the Guardian blogs attract a much larger number of comments compared to the Indy and the FT blogs? Circulation or something else?
I think iRENE GUESt would be a lot clearer as iRENE (female woman’s name, missing start) then GUESt (vistor, missing end). By using “undressing” as the wordplay IRENE and GUEST have to be treated as a single entity if they are not to loose too many letters (ie iRENe gUESt).
I don’t think the phrase “Irene Guest” is one that jumps to mind for most people. How would one ever use this? She is the Irene guest, that one is the Margaret guest? Nonesense really.
While writing the blog I did look up Irene Guest in the hope she would turn out to be someone famous. There was a 19 year old Irene Guest who represented the US in the 1920 Olympic games, winning 2 solver medals.
SM @14 – the NICKAR is a marble made from a seed, nothing to do with clay. That one is a different entry.
@16 – two silver medals, not 2 solver medals
“Could someone tell me why the Guardian blogs attract a much larger number of comments compared to the Indy and the FT blogs? Circulation or something else?”
Good question. I don’t have an answer. FT puzzle discussion, in particular, is almost absent from online sites. For instance, there are 2 fairly active “Crossword Help / Q&A” forums: I’ve never seen a FT thread on one, and on the other I started the only FT thread in memory.
Thanks for the info everyone. Very helpful. I am most grateful.
Thanks PeeDee for the usual excellent, meticulous blog and to all for comments. Mea and DOS on Windows-7 culpa for the missing containment indicator at 19dn. To cut a long PC (as in computer) story short, puzzles constructed on the PC are transferred using a bespoke DOS .bat file — anyone remember those? — to synch with a USB from which submissions are emailed. Yes, it’s ancient tech, I know.
The clue on my USB is as appeared but the clue on my PC is (cf. Roz) “Briefly grumble about one entering former duchy (7)”. For reasons I don’t understand, on very rare occasions the batch file doesn’t overwrite existing files with latest versions. Ergo, in summary, b*gger 🙁
Finally, my notes-to-editor include at 18dn: {I}rene(=[an example of] a female) + gues{t}(=visitor), so I can’t quite see why/how the notion of the invitee “Irene Guest” surfaced, though had she existed she might have been escorted by Major Trousers, the well-known military gents’ outfitter.
Monk@21 , thanks for the explanation for 21. ….. one ENTERING … is so much better than … one IN ….
It is why you set clues and I only solve.
PeeDee@16, I like the idea of Irene Guest winning two medals in the Women’s Crossword event at the 1920 Olympic Games.
Cellomaniac@23 You beat me to it. I love the idea.
Took me days to solve this. And failed, until I entered the nina. But what a wonderful world where the actual setter joins the comments, thank you Monk.
Thanks Monk and PeeDee
Finishing two Monks on the same day !! This one sat around for a month with 18d and 23d languishing – inspired by completing (albeit with error) his puzzle from this week, went back and found the unusual word NICKAR and the unusual spelling of RENEGUES to finally put this one to bed. Furthermore was able to finally spot one of his ninas, although having to google it to see what it meant !!
There were other challenges along the way which lifted this to the harder end of the difficulty spectrum for an FT puzzle – needed the blog to get the Bach connection to the G-STRING and needed to check up on JINNEE, ENARCH, HMRC and those two last ones.
Good to get it finally finished without any wrong letters this time.