Financial Times 14,822 by MONK

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A tricky one from Monk.

12 across is just a guess.  Can anyone help me out?

Every Monk puzzle I have seen has some sort of message or pattern hidden in the grid and I assume this one is no exception.  I cannot see any pattern at all.  I was expecting a pangram for a while but X and Z did not materialise. As Monk once produced a triple pangram, something as simple as a single pangram seemed a bit unlikely anyway.

Thanks Monk for an inventive puzzle that has me beaten!

wpid-Financial-Times-14822-by-MONK.png
Across
8 CAME TO
In the main, stopped censor stifling setter (4,2)
 CATO (Roman censor) contains (Stifles) ME (setter) – ‘in the main’ is in the sea
9 UNAMUSED
Girl meditated, as Victoria? (8)
UNA (girl) MUSED (meditated) – Queen Victoria was famously “not amused”
10 BESMIRCH
Heartless cherubims, terribly dull (8)
anagram (terribly) of CHERuBIMS (heartless, missing middle letter)
11 GOLDEN
Desperately longed to be happy (6)
LONGED* anagram=desperately
12 FOETID
Smelly opponent almost put in order (6)
Just a guess, might be something else.  Can anyone help? FOE (opponent) TIDy (put in order, almost)
13 OVERTONE
Individual following public association (8)
 ONE (individual) following OVERT (public)
14 KNOCKER
Critic of queen going on strike (7)
ER (The Queen) on KNOCK (strike).  I’m surprised Monk was not tempted by a less literal definition of knocker given his usual sense of humour.
16 HOPPERS
Home secretary ringing operator by means of receivers? (7)
HS (Home Secretary) contains (rings) O (operator) PER (by means of)
20 BACK DOOR
Secret instruction implied by crucifix? (4-4)
we are instructed to back DOOR to get ROOD, a crucifix
23 IMPALA
Nearly pierce heart of giant animal (6)
 IMPALe (nearly, most of the letters) with giAnt (heart of) – an antelope
25 SHOWER
Useless people fall (6)
double definition
26 EQUALITY
English character displays fairness (8)
E (English) QUALITY (character)
27 PROLOGUE
Start to play old record when Prudence is around (8)
O (old) LOG (record) in (when…is around) PRUE (prudence, nicknmae)
28 REEBOK
Might one shout “shoo!” for this beast? (6)
shoo sounds like (when shouted) shoe.  Reebok is a brand of sports footware and an antelope.
Down
1 FACE DOWN
Prone to confront (4,4)
 double definition
2 HELMET
Protection for top Liberal theme following review? (6)
 anagram (following review) of L (Liberal) and THEME
3 PORRIDGE
Bishop, one putting on fat in time (8)
RR (Right Reverend, bishop) with I (one) inside (putting on) PODGE (fat) – time in gaol
4 CUSHION
Hutchinson, exposed endlessly, with no time to absorb shock? (7)
anagram (exposed?) of hUtCHINSOn missing H, N (endlessly, a letter at one end) and T (with no time)
5 JANGLE
Upset judge’s corner (6)
J (judge) has ANGLE (corner)
6 FULL STOP
End perfect stay (4,4)
FULL (perfect) STOP (stay)
7 DEMEAN
Put down hollow dome on base (6)
 DomE (hollow, missing middle) on MEAN (base)
15 CAKEWALK
It’s a doddle to harden pace (8)
CAKE (harden, to set?) WALK (pace)
17 OBITUARY
Passing notice (8)
cryptic definition
18 RELATION
Narrative from oriental novel (8)
ORIENTAL* anagram=novel
19 CREEPER
Toad climbing on plant (7)
I’m not sure on this ine.  A plant that climbs on? Somethng that climbs on a plant? CREEP (toad) RE (regarding, on) reversed (climbing)
21 ADHERE
Agree to announcement by me? (6)
an AD HERE could be a annoucement from Monk (me)
22 OARAGE
Rowing endlessly, moan with anger (6)
mOAn (endlessly) with RAGE (anger)
24 PELMET
Fringe of 2 that’s soft, not hard (6)
hELMET with P (soft) replacing H (hard)
*anagram
definitions are underlined

27 comments on “Financial Times 14,822 by MONK”

  1. Thanks Peedee and Monk. I couldnt complete this one – deviousness of the puzzle exceeded my safety limits! 🙂

    12ac is FOETID for Smelly. Parsing is FOE (opponent) TIDy (almost put in order).

    Cheers
    TL

  2. Not definitive about this one – 16d (which I didnt crack) would be parsed as HS (Home Secretary) ringing [OP (operator) PER (by means, as in average)]

  3. Apologies for not commenting in a single text box Peedee … sorry for spamming. 23ac is IMPAL(e) for the parsing.

    What is the anagram indicator in 4d? I wasn’t convinced about ‘exposed’ either.

  4. Thanks PeeDee
    As you say, a tricky one.

    12ac is FOETID – FOE (opponent) TID[y] (almost put in order).

    Sorry but there are a few more corrections needed:

    16ac OP (operator) PER (by means of) in HS
    23ac IMPAL[e] (nearly pierce) [gi]A[nt] ( heart of giant)
    27ac you missed the E off the end of PRUE
    19dn is CREEP (toad) RE (on) reversed (climbing)

  5. Thanks Gaufrid and Turbolegs for coming to the rescue. Misspelling impale as impail was embarrassing, but other than that I think Monk just had me beaten today.

    Can anyone spot what is going on in the grid?

  6. Trubolegs @3 – at the time I just guessed that exposed was an anagram indicator. Looking back I think that exposed could mean “having disguise removed” or “shown for what it really is” in the way that a fraudster may be exposed.

  7. Going well until the bottom half where Monk dug deep for his most devious clues includng 24 which was so obvious I wouldnt have thought it was Monk- like an underarm delivery.

    This stopped me from being cock a hoop after finishing Picaroon and (nearly) finishing Genius (2 pesky corner ones to go.

    And apparently no Monkisms hidden in the grid.

  8. Tricky stuff, even allowing for a couple of ‘old friends’ in the mix. I did enjoy the fight so thank you to Monk and PeeDee

  9. I failed at the half way mark… the grid didn’t help: four mini-crosswords with very few starting letters… But nothing unfair when you read through the answers!

    Thanks Monk and PeeDee for the blog.

  10. Just popping in to clarify a legitimate concern, picked up by TurboLegs@3 and PeeDee@6, regarding 4dn. My original clue had “cruelly” rather than the published “endlessly”, with note [H]utchinso[n]* minus t. ; D = to absorb shock?, v., i.e. {exposed = ends-removal indicator} and {cruelly = anagram indicator}. Thus the published version, having no anagram indicator, doesn’t quite work as intended. May I add emphatically that any resemblance between the name in this clue and that of an editor/setter in another place is entirely coincidental 🙂

    Finally, many thanks to PeeDee for blog, and to all for comments.

  11. Thanks Monk and PeeDee

    4dn: Sorry to add to the list of corrections, but actually the anagram fodder requires the removal of both ends and the internal T from [h]U[t]CHINSO[n].

  13. Interesting point, PB@11, about 4dn but, for me (fodder – t)* is just OK when parsed as fodder* – t because the subtracted element is only one letter. But I do appreciate your point, which (I think) is that the interim process does not give a proper word from utchinso* and, agreed, the parsing is therefore not logically air-tight (as, BTW, in many other forms of clue).

    Finally, it would appear that bloggers are, so far, possibly unfamiliar with the magnum opus of a Mr Melly 😉

  14. Thanks Monk for popping in and explaining your thoughts about 4dn.

    Actually in my comment @11 which crossed your original posting, all I was really concerned with was the fact that the name Hutchinson lost both its ends, whereas PeeDee had left the first N out, and so was just subtracting the H from Hutchison.

    On the question of whether to form the anagram before or after subtracting the T, I see no reason to insist that the intermediate stage should be a real word. I think it is perfectly acceptable to rearrange “utchinso” to form “cushiont” and then remove the T. As long as the form of words used in the clue works for at least one of “rearrange then subtract” or “subtract then rearrange” then I am happy.

  17. Well played, that man Flashling@15. Presumably by intention, your valedictory comment is entirely thematic 🙂

  18. I agree with hedgehoggy about “what a very good puzzle this is”.
    But, let’s face it, that is not something extraordinary for a Monk. His puzzles are, in my opinion, always top-notch.

    If “exposed” is a valid anagram indicator, I cannot see anything wrong with 4d. And I’m not here to re-start a discussion on this clue, nor do I think that anyone’s interested in me not finding BACK-DOOR and (because of that) CREEPER.

    However, there is something else that caught my eye.
    When I saw the clues, just after midnight, I was struck by so many clues being so concise. In my perception, a lot more than in previous Monk puzzles. I counted no less than 15 clues with a maximum of 5 words!
    It made that the overall feeling was indeed that most clues had a rather basic construction (while usually Monk can be very difficult to parse [his clues, I mean]).

    Then I remembered something that Monk said last October in York – that he would like to write more charades, ultimately more satisfying (or the like).
    PeeDee [of course, thanks for the blog], you were there too standing next to Monk.
    And see this is exactly what happened today.
    Coincidence?
    Perhaps.
    If not, mission accomplished.

    Did it make the puzzle easier?
    Not really.
    Yet, the feel was different.

    All in all, great stuff from one of the most consistent setters in the country.

  19. @17 – Roger Mellie The Man on the Telly?

    Nothing thematic I could find there. Actually, nothing even printable.

  20. Good tough puzzle – can’t see any gimmicks.

    I’d hardly call it a magnum opus but George Melly wrote an autobiographical account of his days as a jazz singer (sic) called Owning Up, which I have somewhere.

    There’s a suspicious W G N O on row 7 but I can’t make anything concrete of it.

  21. Oh right – that Mellie – never heard of him – children’s lavatory humour – not broadcast down here – not sure why not – it seems quite crass enough.

  22. According to Wikipedia George Melly wrote several biographies and autobiographies containing much rogering. Rum, Bum and Concertina looks to be the most likely, but I’m not about to buy a copy just on the off chance of finding a thematic reference in there.

  23. Very many thanks Sil@18 for your extremely kind comments. Solver satisfaction is all very subjective because complexity and difficulty are not isomporhic. As a setter, it is certainly satisfying to achieve difficult parsing through simple construction, on which front Richard Rogan’s Times clues are remarkable. And some of John Halpern’s Times clues would fuel a masterclass on brevity. Interestingly, feedback on this forum has indicated that solvers may feel short-changed by overuse of double-definition clues, which are, of course, as brief as one can get.

    As for the (huge!) nina, 14/16, 11/25, 2/24 and 4/19 are all symmetric two-word phrases (all but [the obvious] one hitherto unknown to the setter) manually extracted by a painstaking trawl through this erudite tome. Not sure this forum is the appropriate place to post all definitions, and my apologies for the misspelling of Roger’s surname @13.

  24. Thanks Monk. I get most of them, but what are KNOCKER HOPPERS (if it is possible to explain within the site rules)?

  25. Well, PeeDee@24, luckily you asked for the most polite one: what else could it be but bras, in the parlance of Geordie schoolboys (allegedly). To be honest, the exercise was to tie down the grid in a global way that was effectively invisible, with the added challenge of adhering to normal vocab. And I meant to spell isomorphic @23.

  27. Thanks Monk and PeeDee

    Started this one late … and found it pretty tough going. There were a number of terms that were new to me: perfect = FULL, OARAGE, SHOWER (in the context of slack / useless people), ADHERE (in the context of agreeing) and HOPPER (loosely defined as a receiver).

    Ended up being done by my last one in, HOPPERS (had ‘coppers’ and struggled equating CS to Home Secretary) in what was a poor attempt by me.

    It took an age to twig with REEBOK sounding like shoo – seems so obvious now. PORRIDGE needed some focus to parse. Strangely enough FOETID fell out quite quickly.

    Thought UNAMUSED, CAKEWALK and CREEPER were all very clever.

    Haven’t heard of the character on which the theme was based, so that clearly passed me by – a truly invisible ghost theme!

    Enjoyed it, I think …

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