Yet another varied and enjoyable crossword from Monk. This was a reasonaly accessiible puzzle by Monk standards (ie merely hard).
The grid contains the cryptic message “be all end on”. I have absolutely no idea what this means!
Thanks Monk.
| Across | ||
| 1 | PRIVATE SCHOOL | Hospital cover up that may provide a costly lesson (7,6) |
| (HOSPITAL COVER)* anagram=up | ||
| 8 | BROTHERS | Marx perhaps worries about Right (8) |
| BOTHERS (worries) about R (right) | ||
| 9 | NOTATE | Write down impression about volunteers (6) |
| NOTE (impression) contains (about) TA (Territorial Army, volunteers) | ||
| 10 | EIDENT | Obvious, but not very busy (6) |
| EvIDENT (obvious) missing (but not) V (very) | ||
| 11 | FOLLOW-ON | Receive deliveries earlier than planned? (6-2) |
| cryptic definition (cricket) | ||
| 13 | GARIBALDI | Almost reach to grab coarse biscuit (9) |
| GAIn (reach, almost) contains (to grab) RIBALD (coarse) | ||
| 15 | LAND | Find oneself Liberal, even if nothing else! (4) |
| L (liberal) AND (even if nothing else, an interjection) – “to find oneself or end up being” (Chambers) | ||
| 16 | AFRO | Regularly pay for top coiffure (4) |
| pAy FoR tOp (regularly) | ||
| 18 | CHEWING UP | Grinding, hard victory in, say, competition when touring (7,2) |
| H (hard) WIN (victory) in EG (say) all inside (when touring) CUP (competition) | ||
| 21 | LUKEWARM | Half-hearted conflict found in gospel (Mark) (8) |
| WAR (conflict) in LUKE (gospel) M (mark) | ||
| 22 | DOMINO | Note it’s to be worn by mafia boss over cape (6) |
| MI (note, of scale) inside (its to be worn by) DON (mafia boss) O (over) – a hooded cape worn by priests | ||
| 23 | L-PLATE | Beginning to lose patience, having recently passed? Not according to this (1-5) |
| Lose Patience (beginning to, first letters of) LATE (having recently passed) | ||
| 25 | SOLINGEN | Boy wanting to tarry, having run away in German city (8) |
| SON containing (wanting … in) LINGEr (to tarry) missing (away) R=run – a city on the Rhine | ||
| 26 | STEPTOE AND SON | Totters non-stop, getting teased awfully (7,3,3) |
| anagram (awfully) of NON-STOP and TEASED – totters are rag-and-bone men, characters from classic TV series | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | PARTING | Clear passage in Barnet? (7) |
| cryptic definition – a barnet is rhyming slang for hair/haircut (Barnet Fair) | ||
| 2 | IN THE GROOVE | Up-to-date training given to hero (2,3,6) |
| (GIVEN TO HERO)* anagram=training – an out-of-date expression for up-to-date. There must be a linguistic term for expressions that contradict themselves like this, does anyone know what it is? | ||
| 3 | AVERT | Prevent State Department’s closure (5) |
| AVER (state) departmenT (closure of, last letter of) | ||
| 4 | EASEFUL | Quiet Cockney’s well-fed, reportedly (7) |
| sounds like (reportedly) ‘e’s full (he is full, well-fed) unaspirated (Cockney) | ||
| 5 | CANELLINI | Tin endlessly filled up with cool round beans (9) |
| CAN (tin) fILLEd (endlessly) reversed (up) with IN (cool) reversed (round) | ||
| 6 | OPT | Choose to back first of 26, dropping odds (3) |
| sTePtOe (first word of 26) missing odd letters and reversed (back) | ||
| 7 | LET-DOWN | Extend disappointment (3-4) |
| double definition – initially I wrote in SET-BACK for this which caused me problems, but as it shouldn’t be hyphenated I only had myself to blame | ||
| 12 | OBLIGEMENTS | Favours meetings to be arranged after a series of problems (11) |
| MEETINGS* anagram=arranged following prOBlems (a series of letters of) | ||
| 14 | BUCHAREST | First to provide housing for initially Utopian, cleaner city (9) |
| BEST (first) contains (to provide housing for) Utopian (initial letter of) CHAR (cleaner) | ||
| 17 | FAUX PAS | Message about posh idiot’s retracted mistake (4,3) |
| FAX (message) contains (about) U (posh) than SAP (idiot) reversed (retracted) | ||
| 19 | EN MASSE | Unititiated soldiers gathered briefly in a group (2,5) |
| mEN (soldiers, uninitiated=not beginning) MASSEd (gathered, briefly) | ||
| 20 | PANDEAN | Move camera around valley of the piper? (7) |
| PAN (move camera around) DEAN (valley of, Gloucestershire) | ||
| 22 | DYLAN | Element of body language used by musician (5) |
| found inside (element of … used by) boDY LANguage | ||
| 24 | AXE | Dismiss progressive elements of an extreme crew (3) |
| An eXtreme crEw (progressive letters of, 1st, 2nd, 3rd) | ||
*anagram <br />definitions are underlined
Thanks PeeDee
I wonder if the first and last columns are connected in any way with the THREE-D X-RAYED which appear in the 4th and 12th rows?
Well spotted Gaufrid. I saw THREE and RAY but couldn’t see the whole lines.
I supposed x-raying a three dimensional object produces an 2-D (end on) image. Seems a bit tenuous.
There’s also an LBW but maybe accidental(as they always are
Very enjoyable thank you Monk – and I spotted the Nina! Thanks to PeeDee too.
Thanks Monk and PeeDee
I ended up with a full grid, but four wrong (they sort-of worked). I didn’t even think to look for a nina!
A couple of minor typos in the blog PeeDee:
12 PROblems should be prOBLems
17 PAX should be FAX
I normally see eye-to-eye with PeeDee, but today? … Wrong side of bed? Certainly too busy to concentrate. So I just managed the left-hand side. Thanks for your explanations, PeeDee; and thanks for a glorious mind-bender, Monk.
Thanks for the blog peedee.
Is anyone aware that the TA no longer exists & is now called the Army Reserve? I wonder how long setters will feel it appropriate to continue to clue TA as ‘volunteers’. That said, ‘MEN’ is still often (as here) clued as ‘soldiers’ despite the army having had female soldiers for years…
Yes, very enjoyable. The last FT Monk puzzle was generally regarded (on this site at least) as being at the harder end of the spectrum. Monk felt that the clues were not all that difficult, and indeed they were no harder than in this puzzle, in which I raced through the top half before slowing up bit. I think the difference between the two puzzles is in the grid. Here 1 across opens up the puzzle with seven starting letters; in Monk’s previous outing here, no clue yielded very much in terms of starting letters, and I think that was what made it so testing. Anyway, just an observation. Thanks to Monk and PeeDee.
Simon @5 – fixed now, thanks.
PS – I forgot to mention in the blog what a cracking anagram HOSPITAL COVER/PRIVATE SCHOOL is. Brilliant!
Thanks Monk and PeeDee
Beaten by this one, getting a couple wrong – EIDENT (which I hadn’t heard of) and LAND (which used a context of ‘and’ that I hadn’t seen). Also didn’t parse GARIBALDI.
The rest of the puzzle was pretty hard going as well with other new terms – CANELLINI, SOLINGEN and OBLIGEMENTS.
Have tried to make something from the ninas … but nothing seems to relate.
“In the groove” is an oxymoron, no? I thought of contranym/contronym, but that is a word with opposite meanings (e.g. sanction)