My goodness that was hard work. My time was off the scale and it would be embarrassing to reveal it. But the crossword was all good — indeed very good — and I got there in the end, not at the time being able to parse 7dn but coping with it later. All the clues are sound (so far as I can see) and there are some very clever devices used.
Definitions underlined, in maroon. Anagram indicators in italics.
In the middle unches across and down we have EXPECT and ORATED, which put together becomes EXPECTORATED. I can’t see that this is used other than in the bit in brackets in 18ac, but ….
| Across | ||
| 1 | ATTEMPT | Have a go at end of shift about casual worker (7) |
| at (temp) {shif}t | ||
| 5 | CLASSIC | Filly takes place of horse at the front in fashionable race (7) |
| fashionable = chic; you replace the h [h{orse}] in chic with lass [filly] | ||
| 9 | COURTROOM | Place for hearing apprehended discharge audibly (9) |
| “caught rheum” — some people would be unhappy with room and rheum being homophones, since to them one of the vowel sounds is short and the other long. But I think people fuss too much about homophones, and so long as there is an equivalence in some accents then to me that’s OK, just as two words are OK to be synonymous if in some sense there is an equivalence in meaning | ||
| 10 | TRACE | Track down scrap of evidence (5) |
| 2 defs — it didn’t help me that for a long time I had TRAIL, but this is obviously the correct answer: a trail is more a line than a scrap of evidence | ||
| 11 | SEETHE | Those people short of money on date are angry (6) |
| see [date, as in ‘walk out with’] the{m} | ||
| 12 | RICOCHET | Right choice affected response to contact (8) |
| (rt choice)* — this took a long time because the definition, while being clearly adequate, isn’t the first thing that leads you to ‘ricochet’ | ||
| 14 | SCHOOLMATE | Small child with me also to receive training? (10) |
| (ch. me also to)*, &lit. | ||
| 16 | STIR | Returned legal documents after spending week in prison (4) |
| ({w}rits)rev. | ||
| 18 | SPAT | Revolutionary surreptitiously records dispute (and hidden message) (4) |
| (taps)rev. — the hidden message (in the central row and column of unches) is EXPECT ORATED and if you put these together you get expectorated, which = spat | ||
| 19 | ALTERATION | Century covering current key period preceded change (10) |
| t(I)on with (Alt era) preceding this | ||
| 22 | BULLS-EYE | Certainly recalled stopping shot that’s clipped part of target (5-3) |
| bull(sey)e{t}, the sey being (yes)rev. | ||
| 23 | STRAIN | Labour tax inherited property (6) |
| 3 defs: I suspected this might be the case, but couldn’t see how ‘inherited property’, or ‘inherited’ and ‘property’, was the same as strain. Of course it is, in the sense of genealogy; nothing to do with a financial windfall | ||
| 26 | INGLE | Place to warm up in sleeveless vest (5) |
| {s}ingle{t} | ||
| 27 | EDITORIAL | Leader ordered liar to die (9) |
| *(liar to die) | ||
| 28 | EXTINCT | No more money given to former partner by court (7) |
| ex (tin) ct | ||
| 29 | HOSTESS | One who entertains army without leaving the front (7) |
| host [army] {l}ess | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | ACCOSTS | Attacks on fascist regularly taking toll (7) |
| (f}a{s}c{i}s{t} round cost — I’m not sure of the role of ‘on’ in this clue: it seems to me to be rather a strange link-word, and it can hardly be part of the definition | ||
| 2 | TRUCE | Conservative rightly accepts end to hostilities (5) |
| tru(C)e | ||
| 3 | MATCHBOX | Agree penalty area is where to put striker (8) |
| match [agree] box [penalty area] — but I always thought the box was the six-yard box; those who know more about football than I do will be able to elucidate | ||
| 4 | TROT | Progressive elements of the British proletariat criticised socialist (4) |
| t{he} {B}r{itish} {pr}o{letariat} {cri}t{icised} — this progressive elements idea is seldom seen and therefore hard to see if well-disguised: the first, second, third and fourth letters | ||
| 5 | COMMITTEES | Appointed groups of supporters upholding promise (10) |
| tees [as in golf, not the river or the Indy setter] below [upholding] commit | ||
| 6 | AUTHOR | Write out earth’s prime locations when travelling (6) |
| (out arh)*, the arh being the letters in the prime number positions (2, 3 and 5) of ‘earth’ | ||
| 7 | SPAGHETTI | 8:18 eastbound crashed and stranded fare from Italy (9) |
| (eight SPAT)* — I knew it was this answer, but couldn’t quite explain it since I had in my head that 8 was SPAT — it isn’t: 18 eastbound is 18 across, which is SPAT | ||
| 8 | CREATOR | Inventor boosting maximum speed of nuclear device significantly (7) |
| reactor [nuclear device] with C [maximum speed] moved to the top, ie significantly | ||
| 13 | EMPLOYMENT | Work permit oddly failing to protect staff covered by scheme (10) |
| em(ploy men)t, the emt being {p}e{r}m{i}t | ||
| 15 | HEADLIGHT | Driver’s guide describing separate parts of mainland (9) |
| The separate parts of ‘mainland’ are ‘main’ and ‘land’ and main = head, land = light | ||
| 17 | CAPTIOUS | Quibbling sabotaged pious act (8) |
| *(pious act) | ||
| 18 | SUBSIDE | Second eleven perhaps cave in (7) |
| The second eleven is perhaps a side of substitutes | ||
| 20 | NONPLUS | Record number’s written into newspaper about puzzle (7) |
| (Su(LP no.)n)rev. | ||
| 21 | ASTERN | Royal Navy supports commander that’s flayed sailor’s behind (6) |
| {m}aste{r} RN — it’s ‘behind’ as a sailor would say it, rather than what it seems | ||
| 24 | ALIKE | The greatest opener’s finally dismissed in the same way (5) |
| Ali [“I am the greatest”] ke{y} | ||
| 25 | HIGH | Drunk greeting played on answer machine (4) |
| “hi” — with a rather unusual homophone indicator | ||
*anagram
Another fantastic Serpent crossword. Always seems to manage to hit my Goldilocks level of difficulty and always has some hidden extra.
Finished but couldn’t see how to parse TROT, so well done John in getting that one. Thanks also, as ever, to Serpent.
Thanks Serpent, John
In 1d I took on to mean when, so ‘[you get] attacks when fascists ….’
STRAIN v good, also liked the 8:18 eastbound.
Unusual (non-) use of abbreviations: in SCHOOLMATE, I assumed S CH was small child, but then couldn’t get the anagram to work. Small is not needed for the surface, so I wonder why it was included. Likewise in CLASSIC, I wrote an F in for the first letter, assuming F was replacing H at the front of a word for fashionable, only to find that H is horse at the front. Quite confusing.
Serpent yet again lived up to my expectorations….about that!!
James @2. I took the inclusion of “small” to indicate the abbreviation of child to ch.
Yes, I realised that’s what it was, and that extra indication is common enough (usually in the Times?) but it was very misleading as it is arguably superfluous and there is S CH in the solution. I suppose it was only misleading in the parsing, though; it actually took me straight to the solution.
Blimey! I failed dismally on this one, too many to mention. I might have finished if I’d had more time but there’s a limit when one has to do it during breakfast. Having looked at John’s excellent blog over coffee later I can see it all now. Thanks Serpent – I think!
Very entertaining crossword that needed some brainpower (or computer power) to finish.
The ‘progressive elements’ idea was interesting and I particularly liked some of the simpler answers, viz: CLASSIC, NONPLUS and ASTERN.
Thanks Serpent and John.
Excellent stuff, but far too good for me. Another to enter ‘trail’ for 10a which did me for 8d and a few others went in unparsed, including SPAGHETTI. Still, I was pleased to be able to parse a few tricky ones such as TROT and AUTHOR and to have spotted the Nina, so all was not lost.
Thanks to Serpent for a real challenge and to John
I did spot the hidden message – although it would have been better if I hadn’t been eating my lunchtime sandwich at the time!
Another wonderful Serpent crossword – although I didn’t find it as hard as our blogger and others – I must have been on the right wavelength
Thanks to Serpent for the challenge and to John for the blog
We thought we were on Serpent’s wavelength for a while – then we ground to a halt with about half still unsolved and had to resort to a wordfinder. But we were able to parse everything, including TROT and AUTHOR. Our CoD was for SPAGHETTI – we saw ‘stranded fare …’ as the definition straight away and it helped us get 18ac (though we missed the hidden message).
A good challenge – thanks, Serpent and John.
This is a genuine enquiry (I hope it’s not off-topic – it’s late in the day). I’m not complaining!; but I don’t understand how I regularly appear top or equal top in the Leaderboard, even when I do the puzzle late in the day, when there must be a large number of people who have completed the puzzle online long before then. Is this dodgy Indy software?
(I think the answer may be connected with the fact that that I sometimes have to reload puzzle before the Leaderboard shows me.)
Many thanks to John for the excellent blog and to everyone who has taken the time to solve and comment on the puzzle.
It’s been a looong day but I have to pop in to say how much I enjoyed this.
I couldn’t find the “hidden message” mid-solve and then forgot to check again at the end, so missed that.
On “on” as a link word (1d), if it can mean “next to” as a positional indicator, then I think it’s fine as a link between definition and wordplay.
Many thanks Serpent and John.
Thanks to John and Serpent
I allow myself a set time to complete a puzzle, and only continue beyond that point if I am enjoying it. This puzzle passed that test and then some.
I assumed “on”, in 1d was a misprint of “of”.