Independent 6264/Monk - Tough for a Monday.
Posted by neildubya on 13th November 2006
A superb offering from Monk, one of my favourite setters. This was fairly easy in parts (I did half of it in about 15 minutes) but the NE corner was fiendishly difficult. Tough start to the week but thoroughly enjoyable.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | B in THUR,ER - ref James Thurber, creator of Walter Mitty. ER is Elizabeth here, Edward later on… |
| 5 | TOC EMMA - a trench mortar. This was a new to me but it’s eminently gettable from the fairly straightforward wordplay. Peel=EMMA (The Avengers), TOC= cot (bed) backwards |
| 9 | NONPAREIL - RAP (hit) back in anag of “one-nil”. The clue reads very smoothly although “one-nil” is hardly a “beating”! |
| 12 | ER=edward, in PIQUE, a stiff cotton fabric. Perique is a tobacco from Louisiana. |
| 15 | SPECIAL DELIVERY - a doosra is the off-spinner’s version of the googly, whatever that means. Something to do with cricket. Not your usual delivery anyway. |
| 19 | DULL (anag) in BOG - a bulldog is a Procter’s assistant at either Oxford or Cambridge University. |
| 23 | CYBERPETS - pure class this. “Animals virtually” is the def, c=caught, walk=step + on=re + by (all backwards). Expertly done. |
| 25 | N, WARDER (screw) reversed. |
| Down | |
| 1 | T(-Husband)ANKFUL - a (Renault) Clio can’t take more than a TANKFUL, which is “thankful” after you drop the h (husband). Again, the surface reads very nicely. |
| 2 | ULNAR - anag of URINAL minus I (”one splitting”) |
| 3 | BAA-LAMB - a Baal is a false god + A + MB (doctor). Def is “potential sacrificial offer”. |
| 4 | RHEUMATOLOGICAL - anag of “a rogue claim, loth” - I got this surprisingly quickly as I often struggle with long anagrams. |
| 7 | MOONQUAKE - very sly. “Maria” here is the plural of “mare”, which is a sea on the Moon. |
| 15 | SUB(DUE)S - subs = subscription. |
| 16 | (I)N,DEPT(H) |
| 18 | YELTSIN - anag and very apt surface reading (allegedly)! |
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