A tough (but fair) mental workout from Monk this week.
This needed a few return sessions to get to completion – in fact I think my first scan through only offered up the hidden word in 20D and the material in 21D – maybe supporting the theory that setters sometimes run out of gas by the time they reach the last few down clues (if they compose the clues sequentially, that is?…)
Some wonderful surface readings – Fidel Castro standing on a beach in his CUBAN HEELs! - and some clues that left me kicking myself when I did get them – BATTING AVERAGES and BLOOD BANK probably the pick of these. Several CDs (cryptic definitions) and &lits (or semi-&lits?) which I may well have mis-labelled, so please don’t let’s get too hung up on them…
No fancy themes or NINAs (that I could see, at least) – although there was ‘L A R U S’ across the middle row, which Chambers has as ‘the principal genus of the gull family’, so maybe a gull reference there? Chambers also has ‘gull’ as ‘a dupe or fool; an easily duped person’ – which could easily be applied to your correspondent here!
The twin ‘Religious follower of AC/DC…’ references at 1A and 1D took me a while to get – thinking about religious head-bangers, rather than the other use of ‘AC/DC’ as slang for ‘bi-sexual’.
All in all, a top quality, honest, hard-working Saturday Prize puzzle – thank-you Monk.
(NB. One slight quibble with ‘student’ in 12A as an indicator for ‘BA’ – surely once you get your BA you are an ex-student?)
| Across | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
| 1A | BABIST | Religious follower of AC/DC interrupting short beat (6) | Religious follower (of an eclectic Persian sect) / BAST(E) (to beat, cut short) around BI (bisexual, AC/DC) |
| 4A | BARSAC | By pub fire, finish off wine (6) | wine / BAR (pub) + SAC(K) (fire, dismiss, with the last letter ‘off’) |
| 8A | SHOOT FROM THE HIP | Hastily communicate hot post of him and her showering (5,4,3,3) | hastily communicate / anag (i.e. showering) of HOT POST OF HIM + HER |
| 10A | BISHOPRICS | Sees rat on crib is writhing around (10) | Sees / BI RICS (anag, i.e. writhing) of CRIB IS) around SHOP (rat, tell on) |
| 11A | TWIN | Very much like to work independently, not up-front (4) | Very much like / first letters (i.e. up front) of To Work Independently Not |
| 12A | BARED | Uncovered student anarchist (5) | Uncovered / BA (Bachelor of Arts, ex-student?) + RED (anarchist) |
| 13A | EUCHARIS | No time for bread and wine? That’s a bloomer (8) | A bloomer (flower) / EUCHARIS(T) – bread and wine, without T (time) |
| 15A | COMPILED | Put together joint sex lessons without heartless master (8) | Put together / CO-ED (co-education, joint-sex lessons) around MP(H)IL (Master of Philosophy, with middle letter – heart – or just H for heart, missing) |
| 17A | BOCHE | Who confronted British by a ridge? (5) | &lit-ish – Who confronted British / B (British – doing double duty here) + OCHE (ridge, marking throwing line in darts) |
| 19A | IDEA | Suggestion of European blocking Foreign Aid (4) | Suggestion / ID-A (anag, i.e. foreign, of AID) around (blocked by) E (European) |
| 20A | SECOND MATE | Craftsman, perhaps one involved in bigamy? (6,4) | Craftsman (craft as in boat) / someone involved in bigamy could be a second ‘mate’ (husband or wife) |
| 22A | BATTING AVERAGES | Staying in won’t do them any harm (7,8) | CD / Whilst a batsman (or woman) (in cricket) is ‘in’, he (or she) has the chance to improve his (or her) batting average…England players currently in Australia - take note! |
| 23A | KERNEL | Part of ship blown apart by navy shell’s content (6) | shell’s content (botany, not military) / KEEL (part of ship) split by (blown apart by) RN (navy, Royal Navy) |
| 24A | SLAYED | Old rock band broadcast what Killers did? (6) | what Killers did (murderers, not the rock band ‘The Killers’!)/ homophone – SLADE (Brummie glam rock band of several decades’ longevity) sounds like SLAYED |
| Down | |||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue | Definition (with occasional embellishments) / Logic/parsing |
| 1D | BAHAI | Religious follower of AC/DC welcoming newer band (5) | Religious follower (of another Persian religion, which developed from Babism, at 1A) / BI (bisexual, AC/DC again) around (welcoming) A-HA (Norwegian 80s band, so ‘newer’ than AC/DC, who formed in the 70s) |
| 2D | BROTHER | Monk, dammit, has run inside (7) | Monk / BOTHER (dammit) around R (run) |
| 3D | SOFT-PEDAL | Subdue Joanna, just a little bit (4-5) | &lit-ish double defn?/ If you SOFT-PEDAL you would ‘subdue’ a piano (rhyming slang = JOANNA); also the SOFT PEDAL is a small(ish) part (a little bit) of a piano. |
| 5D | AUTOS | They’re seen in valuations on a regular basis (5) | They (cars), &lit-ish? / regular letters of vAlUaTiOnS |
| 6D | SPECTRA | Ranges of fancy carpets (7) | Ranges / anag (i.e. fancy) of CARPETS |
| 7D | CRITICISE | Fault-finder starts to identify slight engine knock (9) | knock / CRITIC (fault finder) + ISE (first letters of Identify Slight Engine) |
| 9D | OBITER DICTA | Departures from Detroit requiring one cab rank? (6,5) | Departures (from the subject) / anag (i.e. rank) of DETROIT + I (one) + CAB |
| 12D | BLOOD BANK | A positive contribution would benefit it (5,4) | CD / a BLOOD BANK would benefit from a contribution of type ‘A’ Positive blood |
| 14D | CUBAN HEEL | Distraught UN left eastern beach on which Castro may have stood? (5,4) | on which (Fidel) Castro might have stood / anag (i.e. distraught) of UN + L (left) + E (eastern) + BEACH |
| 16D | PSALTER | Essentially, Bishops’ Bible adopts other sacred work (7) | sacred work / PS (essence, or middle, of ‘bishoPS bible’ + ALTER (other, latin) |
| 18D | COMPANY | Crew is evasive about power cut in ship (7) | crew / COY (evasive) around MAN (ship, man-o-war), itself around (cut by) P (power) |
| 20D | SINGE | Result of burning some flags in Georgia (5) | result of burning / hidden word in ‘flagS IN GEorgia’ |
| 21D | TWEED | Given time, perhaps dock some material (5) | some material / T (time) + WEED (dock) |
Well done. I found this tough, even for Monk
I took 3d as a double definition with more distinct meanings than yours; subdue meaning soft-pedal as in “To make less emphatic or obvious; play down” (Websters), and “Joanna, just a little bit” meaning the soft pedal on a piano.
I managed to complete this without recourse to aids in one session but it felt like a bit of a slog. I found the RHS easier than the LHS, and the puzzle only really opened up after I saw the cryptic definitions for BLOOD BANK and BATTING AVERAGES. The COMPILED/PSALTER crossers were my last ones in.
May I just pop in to say thanks to mc_rapper67 for an absolutely beautifully constructed blog whose format is excellent in an almost formulaic way: it has some of the clearest parsing I’ve seen on this site, and the augmentation of definitions is a superb idea. Any budding solver would benefit from precisely this sort of blog format, which I found much easier to read than the ones embedded in [expanded] coloured tables. (mc_r: are you a mathematician 🙂 / physicist / programmer?)
Herb@1 has got (spot on) the intention at 3D, and there was indeed a very nebulous Nina (more of a grid seed, really): apropos of the above-discussed central row, my 11A 2D is a fanatical Brighton & Hove Albion fan …
Thanks for the comments/feedback. And Herb at #1 has the seal of approval from the setter himself for 3D!
Monk – thanks for your kind words. You have me bang to rights – a Maths/Physics nerd at school; degree in Maths and Economics; and then trained as a COBOL computer programmer! Although these days I can’t understand all this web/object oriented stuff, and I am more of an ‘analyst’…as they say: ‘those that can, programme; those that can’t, analyse’ (;+>)
My blogs are put together in an Excel spread sheet in which I have some embedded formulae to pull the various bits of text into some HTML to produce the table, which gets pasted into the HTML option on 15×15 – then I just waffle/sermonise at the top… On my EV and Genius blogs I often use kenmac’s excellent procedure for producing animated GIFs of grids, where themes/substitutions can be shown developing/changing in situ.
Glad I (just) spotted the Larus/Gull Nina – hope your 11A 2D is happy with today’s 3-1 win by the Gulls over the Foxes of Leicester…
Indeed, fellow “nerd” (but we know better ;)), my 11A 2D is bursting at the seams, like a kid in a sweet shop, having made a 350-mile round trip to see the game. I am given to believe that, on sucho ccasions, the Seagulls crowd chants erudite allusions to the deposition of guano on the visiting team …
Thank you to blogger and setter. A real bonus to have the setter contributing to the blog as well and for saying such nice things about the blogger.
A bit of a struggle. I liked 22a and 12d which after much head scratching finally clicked. Given what’s unfortunately happened to the auto industry in the US, 9d was also very apposite. I could have kicked myself – despite having a er… 11a 2d, just like the setter, I completely missed 11a, which in retrospect was one of the easiest clues. Grr!