Monk celebrates a particular clue type today.
Great fun to start the day. Many thanks to Monk!
(I BECALM)* (*criminal)
An ‘alembic’ is a historical (hence ‘once’) distillation tool/still used in alchemy
ARSE (bottom) + [thespia]N (at last) + IC (in command)
‘As’ is the chemical symbol for arsenic
CON (prisoner) + SIGNED (authorised paperwork)
G[romit] (‘s initiator); READ* (*wrong) trousers
Edgar Wallace was a prolific thriller writer in the early 20th century
PARENTS* (*bickering)
About (C (clubs) and IT (sex)) is REAL (genuine)
DARTS< (suddenly hurls, <back)
Strad = Stradivarius, the violin
INTEGRALS* (*cracked)
LIVER (one who resides) in DEER (bucks)
Double definition
H (Henry) introduced to SELLER (vendor)
ADO (trouble); IS + RE (concerning) clothes
[priv]ATE IN[come] (some)
O (Oscar, NATO alphabet) + PEN (writer) introduces DREAM* (*novel)
REST (others) outside (CE (church) + P (quietly, musical))< (<reflecting)
SH[o]RT[l]IST* (*revised, after 3rd and 6th placed drop out)
[m]ARCHERS (walkers, shunning top)
EST (in France: ‘is’) holding RN (service, Royal Navy)
Max Ernst, the German surrealist artist and pioneer of the Dada movement
BAND (gang) nabbing RIG (equipment)
CAN (is able to) + (URGES A)* (*rank)
[m]ADDER (increasingly frantic, starting late)
S (small) + T (time) + [p]ENCIL (writer, denied opening)
(WITH + G[roup] (foremost in))* (*running) in NEAR (tight)
[Cuiras]S (ultimately) included in COR (my) + LET (permitted)
[o]VER (excess, missing O (nothing)) in RELIES (banks)
RADIO* (*broadcast) on TEST (cricket match)
DES (‘some’, French) + PAIR (couple)
VANCE (US vice president) accepts L (large) + E (European)
(GRAHA[me] (not ME, the writer) + B[ohemia]N (vacuous))* (*eccentric)
Kenneth Branagh is one example of a Kenneth, referring to the actor
Cryptic definition
Speedos are swimming briefs. Tackle being slang for male genitals.
O (old) + [score]S (finally) stopping ROT (nonsense)
[f]ORMER (first of two, with no top)
In a choice of two successive things, you would have a ‘former’ and a ‘latter’
I didn’t know either ORMER or CORSLET, and ALEMBIC was dragged reluctantly back from memory.
“EDGAR WALLACE mysteries” was a TV BW series when I was a kid.
Some nicely-compiled surfaces, nothing too abstract, very enjoyable. Though I will repeat my gripe, ” MAN” = “man’s name” always annoys me (ISADORE).
Good show, Monk & Oriel
Thanks for the blog and good spot with the grid .
Very good set of clues and a very friendly grid , so many letters checked including all the first . EDGAR was very neat , the old TV series is often shown on TPTV .
I am always suspicious of As and several others , ARSENIC is the most crosswordy element , its only stable nucleus contains 225 quarks .
Overall not too tricky, but I was held up by putting in (g)AMBLERS at 1d.
Thanks to Monk and Oriel
A brilliant, enjoyable, challenging puzzle with some tough parsings to work through. I missed the nina. Well-set and well-blogged!
Many thanks to Monk and Oriel.
Fairly easy for a Monk crossword, and most enjoyable. I didn’t spot the nina, but I did notice a sprinkling of scientific/maths references – ALEMBIC, ARSENIC and, in the clues, integrals. Favourite, though, was ORMER.
Thanks, Monk and Oriel.
Thanks Monk for the usual excellence. I had many favourites including ARSENIC, GNARLIEST, ATE IN, OPEN-ARMED, BRIGAND, ADROITEST, and SPEEDOS. I searched up and down for a Nina but I missed the angle that Monk used this time around. Thanks Oriel for the blog.
This was a rare DNF, but enjoyable nonetheless.NHO Ormer but was able to figure it out and check in the dictionary later. Defeated by 19D and 23A, even after resorting to a word finder, which I rarely find necessary, not that it would have helped. I share ENboll&’s dislike of using ‘man’ for a man’s name, especially one as rare as Isadore but hey ho!
Loved the elegant succinctness of 2D.
And like pretty much everyone else, I missed the Nina.
Thanks to Monk and Oriel
I could cite the same 3 words as ENBoll& @1 with ORMER being my dredge one.
Quite fiddly, but always felt under control.
Thanks Monk and Oriel.
Thank you very much Oriel for the trademark excellent blog, and to all others for the positive comments. As for the Nina, every single answer has at least one anagram (in Chambers unless otherwise stated), namely:
Across: 1 CEMBALI, 5 CARNIES, CERASIN , 9 SECONDING, 10 GRADE, RAGED, 11 PASTERN, TREPANS, 12 ARTICLE, 13 DRATS, 15 TRIANGLES, 17 REDELIVER, 19 KERBS, 21 HELLERS, 23 ROADIES, 25 ENTIA, TINEA, TENIA, EAT IN, 26 PROMENADE, 27 SCEPTRE, SPECTRE, 28 THIRSTS.
Down: 1 CRASHER, 2 RENTS, TERNS, 3 BARDING, 4 SUGAR-CANE, 5 DARED, DREAD, 6 CLIENTS, 7 WREATHING, 8 COLTERS, COSTREL, 14 REVELRIES, 16 STORIATED (a variant of HISTORIATED), 17 ASPIRED, PRAISED, DIAPERS, 18 ENCLAVE, 19 BHANGRA, 20 DEPOSES, 22 ROOTS, TORSO, 24 ROMER (in SOED, ODE).
Thanks again, and here’s to catching up with some of you in York at the weekend.
Tremendous
Wow.
I rarely do the FT (so many crosswords, so little time etc) but Tony S above recommended this one to me and I loved it. Thanks Monk, I may even buy you a drink over the weekend 😜
Like DuncT#3 I initially had (g)amblers at 1d instead of ARCHERS, and so I couldn’t get 9a CONSIGNED until I had all the other crossers.
I didn’t spot the nina, so mercifully I wasn’t looking for anagrams in all the clues. Well done, Monk, and enjoy the York weekend.
Thanks Henri #12: mine’s a pint of crème de menthe, please 😀
Just noticed again a frequent comment (made today by Roz #2) referring to a “friendly grid”, by which I think is meant an “odd-odd” or “OO” grid with entries in odd-numbered rows and odd-numbered columns. Since realising some time ago (from 225 comments) that solvers find helpful the maximal checking offered by OO grids, the vast majority of my FT puzzles have been on them, departures to EO, OE and EE — the “portcullis grid” — being limited to a few puzzles wherein the Nina merited explicit highlighting. Additionally an effort is made to avoid accumulations of blocks, an L-shaped “fiver” being the maximum above.
Monk@14 , this is in fact an odd-odd-odd grid , every entry an odd number of letters . This means each entry has more than half checked including the first letter making it extra friendly . Some odd-odd have 10 , 4 or 8 ,6 rows etc , slightly less helpful .
Even-even are also known as sticklebrick grids , useful for perimeter messages or even pangrams .
Yes, a wow from me too! I was held up by putting in AMBLERS for 1d too. Looking forward to the York weekend!
So nice to have the setter’s additional comments – thank you.
Roz #12: yes, indeed, I forgot to add that a parallel ongoing intention is to exclude overhanging initial/terminal unches, thereby producing “OOO” grids with (n+1)/2 letters checked in every n-letter word.