Monthly Club Special 20,245: These Games You Play, They’re Gonna End In More Than Tears Someday

Another Monthly Club Special, another awesome puzzle. Not a duff or even a merely average clue in this mix but I particularly liked the “two in every seven” device (who but a genius could have spotted such secrets lurking in Lunar Excursion Modules?), the mashing up of topical crackpottery QAnon with drama schools, and my COD 25ac, with its perfectly thematic sci-fi nerddom. Add some long Latin clues and an immaculate TLS-style at 23dn and you have a puzzle that ticked every box for me.

All this and a Nina too as if you look in the centre of the grid you will find the letters O-Z arranged in precise order, I’m not sure I know why but I certainly like it. Bravo to the setter for another monthly masterpiece!

ACROSS
1 Escape home beset by delay, very good for losing temperature (12)
DEFERVESCING – ESC IN [escape | home] “beset” by DEFER V G [delay | very | good]

9 Preparation of cabbage in sandwich of fish and chips? (5)
SHCHI – hidden in {fi}SH+CHI{ps}

10 Rowers having scored more marks when initially entering contests that China lost (5,4)
OPIUM WARS – OARS [rower], having PIU [“scored” more] + M(arks) + W{hen} “entering”

11 Tumult of WWII represented with wall (8)
WILLIWAW – (WWII + WALL*)

12 Plant yielding fibre and an acidic fruit, mostly from the east (6)
URTICA – A CITRU{s}, entered from east to west

13 Among leaders in Soviet Union with a vote, Molotov now is extremely secure (8)
SUPERMAX – “among” S{oviet} U{nion} + A X [a | vote], PERM [name for the city that was Molotov until 1957]

15 Nurse with touching affection (6)
TENDRE – TEND [nurse] with RE [touching]. I put TENDER in for this initially, naively thinking it might be a straight double def

17 See first person bound by God’s contrary instruction to follow (6)
SUIVEZ – V I [see | first person] “bound” by ZEUS, the whole reversed

18 Former concerns holding back extreme reactionaries (8)
REDNECKS – RECKS [(old word for) concerns] “holding” reversed END [extreme]

20 I once was privileged to take two of every seven in lunar excursion modules (6)
LUCUMO – LU{nar ex}CU{rsion} MO{dules}, following the stated recipe of two letters on, five letters off. A lucumo was the Etruscan equivalent of a Roman rex

21 Rada’s rival for drama in conspiracy theory writer’s case (8)
QALAMDAN – LAMDA [Rada’s rival] replacing NO [drama] in QA{no}N

24 Natural desire to criticise false claim, ousting each Republican (9)
APPETENCE – {r}AP P{r}ETENCE [criticise | false claim], “ousting” all R(epublican)s

25 Not taking sides, Enterprise captain’s first name recalled is “Bones” (5)
ULNAE – take {j}EAN-LU{c} (Picard) and reverse to find not Dr McCoy but some literal bones

26 I’m in cahoots with church’s foremost reforming religious campaigner (12)
ICONOMACHIST – (I’M IN CAHOOTS + C{hurch}*)

DOWN
1 Happens to break down before antivirus finally turns back on (7)
DISOWNS – IS [happens] “breaks” DOWN + {antiviru}S. That’s “turns back on” with the emphasis placed on the “back”, not the “on”.

2 Glib speculation mounted after voting system elected to power the clear leader (6,8)
FACILE PRINCEPS – FACILE [glib] + reversed SPEC after P.R. IN [voting system | elected to power]

3 Current member of Ukip, very quiet going over healing process? (5)
REIKI – I KI{pp}ER [current | member of Ukip], losing its pianissimo and all reversed

4 Bomber with unknown range not accompanied skyward (5,3)
ENOLA GAY – Y AGA LONE [unknown | range | not accompanied], all reversed

5 Run through fourth section of book (4)
CHIV – CH(apter) IV

6 Ascendant among trichinae, tremendously flat worm (9)
NEMERTEAN – hidden reversed in {trichi}NAE TREMEN{dously}

7 Basis for judiciary process aided direction (5,9)
RATIO DECIDENDI – (AIDED DIRECTION*)

8 With shudders, seeing that cod-like fish (6)
ASHAKE – AS [seeing that] + HAKE

14 Attended to part of house, one under roof with bad joints (9)
RHEUMATIC – homophone [“attended to…”] of ROOM + ATTIC

16 Primate immersed in clear liquid in place of worship (8)
SERAPEUM – APE “immersed” in SERUM

17 Indian longs to have time away from firm, twice … (6)
SALWAR – take S{t}ALWAR{t} [firm] and remove T(ime) twice. “Longs” as in long trousers

19 … for her hen party, raising drinks around, say, noon (7)
SANGEET – TEAS around E.G. N, the whole reversed. The ellipsis refers us back to the previous clue and lets us know we’re looking for an Indian woman’s hen party

22 Beaky one informally detained by officer’s assistant (5)
ADUNC – ‘UN “detained” by A.D.C.

23 Novel by a contemporary of Hemingway (“Papa”) and another American author (4)
PNIN – P(apa) + NIN. Nabokov was born in 1899 about 3 months before Hemingway; Anais Nin is the baby of this clue being born in 1903, though she did die in the same year as Nabokov, 1977!

6 comments on “Monthly Club Special 20,245: These Games You Play, They’re Gonna End In More Than Tears Someday”

  1. Was happy to have finished this one, with heavy use of aids. Funny, v, we discussed this puzzle a month ago, and browsing through your blog, I have almost no recollection of the answers!
  2. Just as well the MCS doesn’t count in the error record, as I had three pinks in this one, due to understandable but inexcusable failures to parse, So DEFERVESCENT provided two (dunno where I put the Good or accounted for ESC EN) and I spelled QALAMDAN with a K, referencing the less known but far more loony K-Anon conspiracy.
    If only I’d spotted the Nina, I suppose it might have helped, but in all honesty it took me ages to spot it even when told it was there, where it was, and what it was, plus a bit of time wondering if A to N turned up anywhere. They don’t not least because there’s no B or J, an unusual deficiency in a Special.
    The Nabokov clue with was a particular delight: as V says, doing that TLS thing where everything fits together.
  3. Well done for spotting the Nina, which didn’t have any meaning: I just had an urge to seed the grid with some hard letters. Somewhat paradoxically, it resulted in vocab that I found a bit less exotic than usual, so I’m not sure I’ll do Ninas again in the Monthly.
    1. The Times no longer lets you see how many solutions, correct or not, have been submitted for the club monthly. But I would not be surprised if the numbers have gone down significantly in recent months. Rightly or wrongly I think that the club monthly has got much harder. The Editor could at the least look at the figures and reassure me that it hasn’t, and it is just me 🙂
      1. A quick check shows that entries are staying around the same level. (And they’re never ever going to fade away 🙂 )

        RR

Comments are closed.