Independent 8738 / Monk

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It’s over a year since we last blogged a Monk puzzle, and this was worth waiting for! A tricky solve with two words we hadn’t come across before, but great surfaces and a good Thursday challenge.

Time here has been rather precious just lately with Joyce’s two elderly parents being admitted to hospital – thankfully the same one! It meant that we ended up using the search facility on our Chambers apps on the ipad for a number of entries as we needed to speed up the solve – 1d being a prime example!

Hopefully we will have more time in the future to ‘savour the solve’. Thanks Monk!!

 

Across
1   Strikes off thug’s head in old punishment
SOCKS StOCKS (old punishment) with the ‘t’ (first letter or ‘head’ of Thug) omitted or ‘off’
4   Instinctive, original girl
PRIMEVAL PRIME (original) + VAL (girl)
8   Reject worth, literally
THROW OUT A reverse anagram – ‘worth’ is ‘literally’ an anagram of THROW and OUT is the anagrind
9   Site for housing estate?
GARAGE Cryptic definition – the ‘estate’ is a car, housed in a GARAGE
10   Papers returned bang on track about British agent?
DICK BARTON ID (papers) reversed or ‘returned’ + an anagram of ON TRACK (anagrind is ‘bang’) round B (British)
11   It’s symbolic of an irregular sequence of discounts
ICON Irregular letters of dIsCOuNts
12   Type Gutenberg composed to include a German division symbol
BRANDENBURG GATE BRAND (type) + an anagram of GUTENBERG (anagrind is ‘composed’) round or ‘including’ A
15   As one uncivil idiot said – ring off and get knotted
INDIVIDUALISTIC An anagram of UNCIVIL IDIoT SAID without the ‘o’, or ‘ring off’ – anagrind is ‘get knotted’
18   Dog missing favourite cat?
WHIP WHIPpet (dog) without or ‘missing’ pet (favourite) – great surface!
20   Time simple boy, a brute, turned into a man of science
ERGONOMIST T (time) + SIMON (‘simple boy’ as in the rhyme) + OGRE (a brute) all reversed or ‘turned’
22   Complaint by trust about a show off
FLAUNT FLU (complaint) + NT (National Trust) round A
23   Miss middle of open toilet with fine cover
OVERLOOK Middle letters of oVERt (open) + LOO (toilet) in or ‘covered by’ OK (fine)
24   Names king to be introduced in seconds
HANDLERS HANDLES (names) round or ‘introducing’ R (king)
25   Fell without power and hit bottom
SPANK SANK (fell) round or ‘without’ P (power)
Down
1   Drunken lechers in visible streaks
SCHLIEREN An anagram of LECHERS IN – anagrind is ‘drunken’.
2   Punch in the face and leg
CLOCK ON CLOCK (face) + ON (leg – in cricket)
3   Car manufacturer rejected publicity agreements
SKODA AD (publicity) + OKS (agreements) all reversed or ‘rejected’
4   Somehow prestigious to be specific classmates?
PETITS BOURGEOIS An anagram of PRESTIGIOUS TO BE – anagrind is ‘somehow’
5   Mostly innocent girl you finally left – not half amoral
IN GENERAL INGENuE (innocent girl) with the ‘u’ (last or ‘final’ letter of ‘you’) omitted or ‘left’ + RAL (half of ‘amoral’)
6   Raising, with minimal adjustment, a piece of jewellery
EARRING REARING (raising) with the first ‘r’ moved back two letters – a ‘minimal adjustment’
7   Extremely amazing endless orgy raised problems
AGGRO AmazinG (first and last letters or ‘extremes’) + ORGy with the last letter omitted or ‘endless’ and reversed or ‘raised’
13   Mostly impressive stronghold at which one might be shaken
EPICENTRE EPIc (impressive) with the last letter omitted or ‘mostly’ + CENTRE (stronghold)
14   Part of lathe behind store
TAILSTOCK TAIL (behind) + STOCK (store)
16   Confiscate one penny in bank
IMPOUND I (one) + P (penny) in MOUND (bank)
17   African republic in trouble before Hebrew prophet turned up
SOMALIA AIL (trouble) + AMOS (Hebrew prophet) reversed or ‘turned up’
19   Saint’s holiday shifted after vacuous outcry has been suppressed
HILDA An anagram of HoLIDAy with the first and last letters (‘vacuous’) of ‘outcry’ omitted or ‘suppressed’ – anagrind is ‘shifted’
21   Of which the more one has, the more one wants
NEEDS Cryptic definition – relying on the meaning of ‘wants’ as ‘lacks’ as opposed to ‘desires’

 

16 comments on “Independent 8738 / Monk”

  1. Never heard of 1d or 14d. Otherwise the answers revealed themselves steadily enough.

    I thought 23ac was a bit convoluted.

    Thx all, hope things improve soon, BandJ

  3. #2 – I think that Monk has been on holiday in the Orkneys. His Telegraph Toughie yesterday wearing his Sparks hat contained a Nina with three of the scenic highlights to be found there and he left a comment on the blog to confirm this. There is a third Orcadian puzzle to make an appearance.

  5. I agree that this was a fine puzzle with plenty of ingenious cluing. I missed the nina until I saw endwether@2’s comment, went back, found it, and was none the wiser until Kairos@3 chipped in. SCHLIEREN was my LOI as the most likely arrangement of the anagram fodder.

  7. Thanks endwether@2 – we totally missed the nina but that didn’t really surprise us! Also thanks to Kairos for the explanation.

  8. Very good clues, a joy to solve.

    I didn’t really like 6 down which is on the verge of being indirect, but I did choose 21 down as my favourite clue.

    Great.

  9. What fifteen-letter solution is embedded irregularly in this nonsense? (5,6,4)

    For what it’s worth, maybe WHITE NEROLI SEED is a possible answer to that, but I don’t really care. It’s just an example of how silly 11a could get if taken to the extremes of absurdity.

    I can hardly complain about the clue which was my FOI, but I spent quite a lot of my solving time wondering how fair it is as a device to just say “pick some of these letters (though without disturbing their order)”. As a setter, it looks like the answer to quite a number of irritating situations, but I can’t help feeling a mite queasy about it. Does anyone else have an opinion?

  10. Alchemi@9 – interesting point. I saw where the clue was going and solved it as soon as I had the I checker at the start. Although it isn’t a common device I don’t have a problem with it as long as the definition isn’t too well hidden.

  11. Too much of a struggle for me for it to be enjoyable. In the end I was guessing and cheating to finish it. I wasn’t sure about the plural at 4dn, having failed O-level French a good many years ago.

  12. Re icon monk has a lot of previous like this, only Araucaria did this, that I can remember. Very hard and I missed the Nina, grr.
    Cheers b&j some parsing I failed and just entered cos it fitted.

  13. @Alchemi. I too must admit I raised my eyebrows at 11ac. I can’t remember ever seeing it before and agree with you that it comes across as a very lazy way to clue.

  14. Regarding 11ac as a ‘very lazy way to clue’ is one way to look at it.
    I tend to say that Monk, not for the first time, tries something ‘new’.
    This device works perfectly well when there are not too many possible options without having any crossing letters.
    Actually, if the solver found the I at the start, I even think there’s only one of these possibilities left (ICON).
    Seems fair to me.

    BTW, for some reason I changed 1ac (SOCKS) into SACKS, giving Monk the pleasure of an Arcadian Vacation … 🙂

    All in all, I found this a very hard puzzle – Monk as Monk can be.
    I still don’t know whether ‘middle of open’ for VER is one step too far or not. The definition, however, was so clear that we cannot complain eventually.

    For me, 12ac was a great clue.
    I was too long looking for (TYPE GUTENBERG)* around A+G, perhaps leading to a (mathematical) division symbol.
    On finding the actual solution, there was of course the famous doh moment. But I like clues that can easily wrongfoot the solver.

    Thanks, B&J & Monk – hope to see ya all next week.

    ps, being one who doesn’t have a high-quality radar for cryptic definitions, I must admit that 9ac was one of the best I’ve seen in recent times.

  15. I thought this was a superb puzzle – not too difficult but definitely not a write-in! I agree with Sil (yet again!) in that I thought ICON both fair and fun.
    Incidentally, isn’t this an example of a (mini) theme rather than a Nina – or am I missing something?
    Thanks to Monk and B&J.
    Joyce – so sorry about your ma and pa – I do hope you can draw on the positives. With love…

  16. Alchemi @9, FWIW I quite liked 11a, even if it did get a ‘!’ in my margin.
    If someone made up an arbitrary rule that such ‘irregular’ clues must be hidden in no more than the one word, as here, I’d be happy with that.

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