Another fun puzzle, sorry the blog is late again! Thanks Monk.
I can see SHANGHAI TWENTIES MONKS in the grid. Anyone know what that is about?
| ACROSS | ||
| 9 | TWO | Following retirement, anything in Yorkshire draws couple (3) |
| OWT anything, Yorkshire dialect) reversed (following retirement) | ||
| 10 | BOOMERANGED | Backfired lie suddenly became active when circulating (11) |
| RANGE (lie, spread over) inside (with…circulating) BOOMED (suddenly became active) | ||
| 11 | ARENA | Region housing new stadium (5) |
| AREA (region) contains (housing) N (new) | ||
| 12 | TOADSTOOL | What could be poisonous, hateful folk wanting money back (9) |
| TOADS (hateful folk) then LOOT (money) reversed (back) | ||
| 13 | HEIRESS | Old Nazi full of rage? One has succeeded (7) |
| HESS (Rudolf Hess, old Nazi) contains IRE (rage) | ||
| 14 | OPUS DEI | Work through Oedipus complex (4,3) |
| anagram (complex) of OEDIPUS | ||
| 16 | PERSONA NON GRATA | Undesirable article in baroque contents of Brontë Parsonage (7,3,5) |
| AN (article) inside anagram (baroque) of bRONTe (contents of) and PARSONAGE | ||
| 20 | YEAR END | Finale of Hogmanay? (4-3) |
| cryptic definition? | ||
| 23 | TYMPANO | Tap on my tight drum (7) |
| anagram (tight, drunk) of TAP ON MY | ||
| 25 | DAYBREAKS | Dawn repeatedly reprinted bakery ads (9) |
| anagram (reprinted) of BAKERY ADS | ||
| 26 | EXTRA | For example, wide on the right, but not the edges (5) |
| dEXTRAl (on the right) missing outside letters (but not the edges) – cricket term | ||
| 27 | BLOOD VESSEL | Craft relationship, exchanging a warm-hearted connection? (5,6) |
| VESSEL (craft) BLOOD (relationship) swapping places (exchanging) | ||
| 28 | VIA | By way of novel idea viewed regularly (3) |
| every third letter (viewed regularly) of noVel IdeA | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | STRATHSPEY | Of course, introductions sent round about hotel dance (10) |
| YEP (of course) STARTS (introductions) all reversed (sent round) contains (about) H (hotel) | ||
| 2 | HOTELIER | Loveless siren enthralling lean landlord, maybe (8) |
| HOoTER (siren) missing O (loveless) contains (enthralling) LIE (lean) | ||
| 3 | ABLAZE | Excited bishop in a lounge (6) |
| B (bishop) inside A LAZE (lounge) | ||
| 4 | NORTH SEA | Beginning to survey another crude oil source? (5,3) |
| anagram (crude) of Survey (first letter, beginning) ANOTHER | ||
| 5 | GELATO | Try covering story about part of fare to Italy? (6) |
| GO (try) contains (covering) TALE (story) reversed (about) – fare is food | ||
| 6 | HAPSBURG | Polish son and dad raised in extremely headstrong European family (8) |
| RUB (polish) and PA (dad) all reversed (raised) in HeadstronG (outside letters, extremes of) | ||
| 7 | AGE-OLD | Ancient American or English going inside (3-3) |
| A (American) GOLD (or) contains (…going inside) E (English) | ||
| 8 | IDOL | Favourite party in Israel (4) |
| DO (party) inside IL (Israel) | ||
| 15 | INAMORATAS | Northbound travellers trapped by mostly evil lovers (10) |
| ROMA (travellers) inside (trapped by) SATANIc (evil, mostly) all reversed (northbound) | ||
| 17 | OVERRIDE | Rule against sin seen in video nasty (8) |
| ERR (sin) inside anagram (nasty) of VIDEO | ||
| 18 | OBTUSEST | The most dull-witted bobby regularly races around Customs (8) |
| bObBy (regularly) then TT (races) containing USES (customs) | ||
| 19 | ADAPTIVE | Publicity not initially confined, having capacity to be adjusted (8) |
| AD (publicity) then cAPTIVE (confined) missing initial letter | ||
| 21 | ANYHOW | Indifferently, several parade toplessly (6) |
| mANY sHOW (several parade) toplessly | ||
| 22 | DEAFEN | Stun partially, beside a fence (6) |
| found inside (partially) besiDE A FENce | ||
| 24 | MUESLI | Beasts I left to go down for oats, etc? (6) |
| MULES (beasts) I with L (left) moving along the word | ||
| 25 | DEBT | Duty originally to be endured daily, then lifted (4) |
| first letters (originally) of To Be Endured Daily reversed (then lifted) | ||
A couple of changes needed. In 16a, it is AN (article) in an anagram (baroque) of RONT (contents of Brontë) + PARSONAGE. In 20a, I think the idea is that “Hogmanay” ends in “y” (year). Thanks all.
Thanks PeeDee
In darts, a shanghai is a single, a double and a triple of the same number with a set of three darts so I suspect that this is Monk’s 120th FT appearance.
Classic case of actually being misdirected by a nina .Nearing the finishing line I looked for Monk’s signature (as one does) and saw SHANGHAI which confirmed HAPSBURG then I looked at the bottom-was it SWEETIES? I googled it and got a glimmer of something but it didnt help with 22 or 25. So otherwise OK and we still got TWENTIES-I demand a full explanation from this Franciscan setter.
Great puzzle-thanks all!
Thanks Gaufrid!
Thanks for the hard work, Pee Dee. I think we may differ on parsing of 16ac — ‘Bronte Parsonage’ contains a BE which PERSONA NON GRATA doesn’t; and there’s an extra AN needed. After a lot of disentangling I decided that ‘Article’ denotes AN; and that the BE of ‘Baroque’ is somehow redundant, I don’t know how. Thanks, Monk, for a toughie.
Thanks, Hovis, you’ve got it.
Thanks Gaufrid. I knew the darts term but didn’t manage to put it together in a meaningful way. I suspect you may well be correct. Sneaky.
It’s always satisfying to complete a Monk crossword because I generally find them to be a cut above in both difficulty and overall brilliance. I particularly liked OVERRIDE, ANYHOW, ADAPTIVE, and DEBT. Thanks PeeDee for parsing — I got TWO and AGE-OLD by definition alone.
The usual Monk excellence – congratulations on the 120th FT puzzle and thank you to him, PeeDee and Gaufrid
I wondered if the theme had something to do with Italy:
Hapsburg; Opus Dei (latin); Persona Non Grata (latin); Tympano; Via (latin); gelato; inamorata; muesli
Could it be?
Thanks for the correction Hovis. I saw that Y is at the end of Hogmany, but wouldn’t “year end” be R? I couldn’t (and still can’t) make a coherent explanation of the clue.
I think Y is fine. End refers to Hogmanay not year. So Hogmanay has a Y(ear) end.
Pee Dee, isn’t 15d ROMANI & SATA(N) (rev)?
Hi Ong’ara
Re 15dn – an interesting alternative! But where does “trapped” fit into your explanation? ROMANI and SATAn follow each other, ROMANI is not inside SATAn.
Hi Hovis, yes I get that, but it is a bit of a hand-waving explanation. I tried to come up with a clear and logical set of steps leading from the clue to the solution, but can’t do it.
I think 15d is ROMA inside SATANI(c)
Ok Pee Dee, I see your point, mea culpa.
I thought this was brilliant all round. I saw the top and bottom lines, but didn’t get the darts connection. 7 down is one of the most devious misdirections I have come across and deserves a special mention. Thank you to Monk for this and all the previous ones I have solved and enjoyed, and thanks also to Pee Dee, Gaufrid and all the contributors who showed me what I’d missed.
Thanks Monk & PeeDee et al.
If 20 across was simply “Hogmany?” it would be a cryptic and literal double definition, the sort that Rufus/Dante wrote in which the literal meaning was more obvious than the cryptic. Perhaps Monk included “Finale” to direct attention to the end of the word where the cryptic definition is hiding.
We almost got it all. We struggled with 22dn as we never spotted it was a hidden; originally we went for ‘dealer’ (in stolen goods – a fence) but then spotted there was a nina and the bottom row had to be ‘twenties’ so we changed it to ‘deaden’ (stun) but of course we couldn’t parse either. And we only saw the top and bottom rows of the nina and couldn’t make much sense of it – although googling did turn up a few references to Shanghai in the ‘roaring twenties’ but nothing vaguely topical.
Favourite was PERSONA NON GRATA (which we parsed as did Hovis except that we saw it as dropping the E from ‘parsonage’ – and the definition simply as ‘undesirable’).
Thanks, Monk and PeeDee.
Thanks to Monk & PeeDee.Top quality indeed. I’m always pleased to finish a Monk; often can’t. @ diagacht well spotted on all the Italuan refernces, but here in Vienna we still like to claim Hapsburg as Austrian(ish) and muesli as Swiss German
Thank you PeeDee for another great blog, and to all threadies for your positive comments. I hadn’t realised until today that this was published yesterday, hence the delay in reply. Chuffed at the monastery given that you all enjoyed so much what was indeed my 120th FT, so Gaufrid got the Nina bang-on. I think all queries have been answered in the exchanges, so here’s to another Shanghai of fun at the FT. Ta muchly, and stay safe/alert/sane.
Thanks Monk and PeeDee
A good testing puzzle with a really good mix of clue devices – many of them quite devious. Parsed YEAR END as did Hovis – with the Rufusian / Dantean logic that Y is YEAR at the end of the word that means year end.
Finished with ANYHOW (one that the definition needed to come and like so many other clues throughout having to then work out the cryptic why), the well camouflaged hidden DEAFEN and back up to STRATHSPEY (the dance that was on the tip of my tongue much earlier but would not come until late … and then the really tricky parsing which took quite a while as well).
Spotted the nina for a change but had no idea what it meant – thanks to Gaufrid for enlightening and congrats to Monk on achieving the 120 mark.
A brilliant crossword. Defeated (after three days hard slog with one more clue every few hours!) by 1d and 2d, and the parsing of 7d (I’ve learned not to overlook a stray “a”, need also to focus on other small words).