Poor old Serpent has got me again, not long after his last appearance. But from my point of view it’s a pleasure: very much on the tricky side but quite fair and a whole lot of very satisfactory clues.
All the across answers have a connection with green. In some cases this connection is hard to see, so I won’t give a long list of the answers and the links since no doubt at times I’d be wrong or at least wouldn’t give the whole story; and in any case you, dear reader, will enjoy working them out for yourself. I was rather doubtful about manure.
| Across | ||
| 7 | REVEREND | Religious figure continually pursuing right to die (8) |
| r ever end | ||
| 9 | BOTTLE | Vessel ran short with too much on board (6) |
| b(OTT)le{d} | ||
| 10 | LIME | Fiction about money being something that grows on trees (4) |
| li(m)e | ||
| 11 | STONE | What’s extracted from quarry pit? (5) |
| 2 defs | ||
| 12 | CARD | Issue warning to clubs using right to block promotion (4) |
| c a(r)d — or possibly the definition is simply ‘Issue warning’ — either way it uses ‘card’ as a verb — not being an avid football fan I’m unaware of this (American?) usage but can imagine it — after all, as they say, every noun can be verbed | ||
| 13 | WINTER | Season with Italian club (6) |
| w Inter — Inter Milan | ||
| 14 | PUTTING | Fighter boxing first for title, money and action, of course (7) |
| pu(t{itle} tin)g — boxing the inclusion indicator — action, of course = action on the golf course | ||
| 16 | CHEESE | It’s said to put a smile on your face (6) |
| CD — say “cheese” | ||
| 18 | DRAGON | Fierce female academic limits students’ fun (6) |
| d(rag)on | ||
| 21 | EMERALD | Mere lad turned out for expensive 11 (7) |
| (Mere lad)* — 11 being stone this is an expensive stone | ||
| 23 | TURTLE | One shelled by time bomb releasing hydrogen (6) |
| t {h}urtle | ||
| 25 | BELT | Gamble about third place in relay race (4) |
| be({re}l{ay})t — we’ve just had bomb = hurtle, now we have race = belt | ||
| 27 | OLIVE | Woman ignoring man’s resistance (5) |
| Olive{R} | ||
| 28 | LINE | Arrangement prior to uptake of drugs policy (4) |
| 2 defs — being an innocent in these matters I wouldn’t really know, but I believe there is such a thing as a line of coke (cocaine) and that before inhaling this powder one arranges it into a line | ||
| 29 | MANURE | What’s produced by horse eating a couple of nuts? (6) |
| ma(nu{ts})re — semi &lit., or complete &lit., who knows, anyway &littish | ||
| 30 | SICKNESS | Complaint of Labour leader lacking in fluency (8) |
| s{L{abour}}ickness | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | SEMICIRCLE | Writer’s upset that cleric’s upset about end of narrative arc (10) |
| (I’m)rev. in (cleric’s)*, then {narrativ}e | ||
| 2 | REVERT | Return sweater and blouse, finally, to French Connection (6) |
| {sweate}r {blous}e vert — I can’t really see why vert = French Connection since vert is simply French for green, but maybe Jacques Vert (in some way connected with French Connection) comes into it somehow, or more likely it’s just that the connection in all the acrosses is green, and the French connection is vert, just as the German connection would be grün | ||
| 3 | MEASURES | Quantities served in pubs and bars (8) |
| 2 defs, the second of them referring to music scoring | ||
| 4 | ABSENT | Sailor posted miles away (6) |
| AB sent | ||
| 5 | STOCKING | Part of hose man used to support raised beds (8) |
| (cots)rev. king — the chessman | ||
| 6 | BLUR | Obscure second book is excluded from marketing material (4) |
| blur{b} | ||
| 8 | DROOPY | Feeling tired and thirsty having wrapped stool up (6) |
| dr(oop)y, the oop being (poo)rev. | ||
| 15 | GENTLENESS | Amiable nature perhaps characteristic of hen parties round Tyneside? (10) |
| gentle(NE)ss — hen parties might be said to be gent-less | ||
| 17 | EVENTFUL | Flue lining damaged flue filled with stuff (8) |
| vent in (flue)* — lining the insertion indicator | ||
| 19 | RETRENCH | Try to bring up taking on shortened lease to reduce expenditure (8) |
| ret(ren{t})ch | ||
| 20 | ADMITS | Publicity about university grants (6) |
| ad(MIT)s — it is a doubt (or stronger) with some people whether or not MIT is actually a university, but by usage in crosswordland it seems to be, and this is supported by Google etc | ||
| 22 | ADORED | Highly esteemed left-wing supporter of American party (6) |
| A do red | ||
| 24 | RELENT | Change one’s mind about name being included in lease (6) |
| re le(n)t | ||
| 26 | ELAN | Kind of dash used for some cycle lanes (4) |
| Hidden in cyclE LANes | ||
*anagram
The Independent seems to be spoiling us these days. Yet another excellent crossword. For me, the last few cryptics have outshone both those in the FT and the Guardian. I didn’t care for 2d, which I failed to get, as it strikes me as a bit obscure. I do like your explanation John – I didn’t see the green connection (and still don’t to a large extent, but am happy to put that down to my own ignorance). Personally, I liked 29a – 17d was also a favourite. Thanks all.
Thanks John – I’m sure the “French connection” is (as you say) the fact that ‘vert’ = ‘green’ = the connection between the across answers. Nicely done by Serpent: he’s become quite a regular recently, appearing about every two weeks, which is fine by me.
Another fine piece from The Independent, and from Serpent.
Thanks John. And Serpent, you played a blinder! Muchas gracias.
Brilliant stuff. A medium difficulty Serpent for me with a nice regular solve that I did all but one of in the hour. Honours today go to the crossie as a whole with great surfaces, neat devices, misdirection and even a bit of cool wit and humour so thanks to The Snake for an excellent puzzle and to John for the blog.
Having heard of the Serpent’s sting, but not having faced him, I was pleased to solve all but 2d. “French Connection” seemed to call for “et,” and nicely so. It would sit well with other red herrings such as “flower” and “banker.”
Was doing ok until I got to the last few in se – so I’m defeated.
Loads to like, quarry pit, 29a, 15d, 17d and stuff like 20d do it for me. Plenty more.
Missed theme of course, thanks for explaining John and Andrew – French connection, phew , missed that completely.
Very impressive serpent
As Hoskins said @5 a crossword of medium difficulty.
I got off to a flying start but things slowed down very quickly.
Missed the theme for the most part.
Did think of ‘green’ on various occasions but did not make the Connection.
And – like others – certainly not the French Connection.
It had to be REVERT, though, at 2d.
All in all, very enjoyable – with or without a theme.
Many thanks to Serpent and to John for a fine blog.
I read REVERT as “To (as in towards) French” = “vers” plus “connection” = “T” as in a plumbing tee. Don’t know what happened to the S in vers.
Like Dutch I did pretty well till grinding to a halt with the SE corner – but I did eventually finish after realising that 8dn was DROOPY, not DROWSY (which obviously I couldn’t parse) so then I was able to get 14ac followed by 15dn and slowly got the rest. Didn’t spot the theme, but having been told it the parsing of REVERT is obviously the simple explanation that the connection is the French for ‘green’.
So much to like here that it would be difficult to nominate a CoD.
Thanks, Serpent and John.
Got stuck on the bottom right and had to cheat a bit to finish, and then discovered coming here that my guess for 12ac was wrong. Totally failed to see the green connection, but I’d guessed 2dn correctly.
Many thanks, John, for the great blog. I’m glad you didn’t find it too much of a chore having to blog another of my puzzles! And thanks, as always, to everyone who has commented.
Cheers
Jason