Financial Times 16,505 by MONK

24 comments on “Financial Times 16,505 by MONK”

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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!

4. Thanks Gaufrid!

5. 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.

6. Thanks, Hovis, you’ve got it.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. The usual Monk excellence – congratulations on the 120th FT puzzle and thank you to him, PeeDee and Gaufrid

10. 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?

11. 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.

12. I think Y is fine. End refers to Hogmanay not year. So Hogmanay has a Y(ear) end.

13. Pee Dee, isn’t 15d ROMANI & SATA(N) (rev)?

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. I think 15d is ROMA inside SATANI(c)

17. Ok Pee Dee, I see your point, mea culpa.

18. 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.

19. 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.

20. 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.

21. 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

22. 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.

23. 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.

24. 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).

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