Independent 10,389 by Serpent

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We realised that we were in for a bumpy ride when we saw that today’s puzzle is a Serpent

In the event, we found this to be less challenging than we had expected, but nonetheless, an enjoyable solve involving a certain amount of head-scratching to sort out the parsing of some of the clues.
We had never watched the US TV series referred to in the definition at 27ac, so we had to use some electronic help to check that our vague memory of the characters’ names was correct (the series was so popular, we couldn’t help gathering some information about it).
We also had to check the meanings of 25ac and 29ac, which were not familiar to us.
Being a Serpent, we felt that there must be a theme or a nina, but it was not until we had filled the grid, looked at the perimeter unches and realised that they could spell a Latin phrase that we tumbled to it, although we still cannot see why Serpent chose ‘Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus’ – apparently the only book published by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. There do not seem to be any other specific references to the work (although from what we can find out about it, it is pretty abstruse). Perhaps someone out there is more au fait with philosophy and can enlighten us?

image of grid
ACROSS
8 OCULAR False religion briefly embroiled in row about vision (6)
CULt (false religion) without the last letter or ‘briefly’ ’embroiled’ in OAR (row)
9 ODDMENTS Snippets from books by author delving into probability (8)
NT (New Testament – ‘books’) after or ‘by’ ME (author) ‘delving’ in ODDS (probability)
10 LODESTAR Guide expected work reported by headline (8)
A homophone (‘reported’) of LOAD (expected work) + STAR (headline – as a verb)
11 EXEMPT Having no duties former employee casually taking time to finish (6)
EX (former) EMP (‘casual’ abbreviation of ’employee’) T (time) TEMP (’employee casually’) with the ‘t’ (time) moved to the end – thanks to Wordplodder @1 for the correction
12 INSTIL Gradually introduce detailed steps to follow at home (6)
STILe (steps) without the last letter or ‘de-tailed’ following IN (at home)
13 MOTORCAR Drivers start to turn in space when reversing vehicle (8)
RAC (drivers) + T (first letter or ‘start’ of ‘turn’) in ROOM (space) all reversed
14 HERO Horse throws popular champion (4)
HEROin (horse) without or ‘throwing’ ‘in’ (popular)
16 SAXON Poles on Greek Island confused German (5)
NAXOS (Greek island) with the N and S (north and south ‘poles’) swapped or ‘confused’
18 MESA Eminence of name-dropping intellectuals (4)
MEnSA (‘intellectuals’) without or ‘dropping’ ‘n’ (name)
20 PLATINUM Case in point symbolises this valuable material (8)
PT (abbreviation for ‘point’) P T (first and last letters or ‘case’ in ‘point’) is the chemical symbol for PLATINUM – thanks to Hovis @4 for the correction
23 RUBRIC Regret loyal friend announced instructions to candidates (6)
A homophone (‘announced’) of RUE (regret) BRICK (loyal friend)
25 OTIOSE Extracting power from unstable isotope is superfluous (6)
An anagram of ISOTOpE without or ‘extracting’ ‘p’ (power) – anagrind is ‘unstable’
26 CLEAREST Electra’s complex is most understandable (8)
An anagram of ELECTRAS – anagrind ‘complex’
27 CHANDLER “Friend” wants name included in credit (8)
HANDLE (name) in CR (credit)
28 ATAXIA Inability to coordinate drivers locking vehicle (6)
AA (‘drivers’ – see RAC at 13ac) round or ‘locking’ TAXI (vehicle)
DOWN
1 SCROUNGE Bum mix of Cure song (8)
An anagram of CURE SONG – anagrind is ‘mix’
2 OLDEST First 6 of 10 could become greatest in years (6)
An anagram of LODEST(ar) (first six letters of 10ac) – anagrind is ‘could become’
3 PRATTLES Sound of person dying inside container of poisonous gases (8)
RATTLE (‘sound of person dying’) in P S (first and last letters or ‘container’ of ‘poisonous’)
4 HOUR Time to take heart from award (4)
HOnoUR (award) without the middle letters or ‘heart’
5 IDLEST Listed building is least occupied (6)
An anagram of LISTED – anagrind is ‘building’
6 CEREBRUM Cold beer produced strange thoughts here (8)
C (cold) + an anagram of BEER (anagrind is ‘produced’) + RUM (strange)
7 UTOPIA Nirvana cover recorded in urinal oddly (6)
TOP (cover) in odd letters of UrInAl
13 MAXIM Old lady gets cross over gnome (5)
MA (old lady) MIX (cross) all reversed or ‘over’ Thanks Gwep
15 OUTGOING Cost of excursion, including travel (8)
OUTING (excursion) round or ‘including’ GO (travel)
17 NERVE GAS Deadly agent in The New Avengers (5,3)
An anagram of AVENGERS – anagrind is ‘new’
19 SWIMSUIT Limited coverage was initially breaking SIM cards of similar design (8)
W (first or ‘initial’ letter of ‘was’) in or ‘breaking’ SIM SUIT (‘cards of similar design’)
21 LITCHI Fruit found in illuminated character of Greek text (6)
LIT (illuminated) CHI (‘character of Greek text’)
22 NIELLO Engraving that is inspired by last of Jackson Pollock’s three pivotal pieces (6)
IE (that is) in N (last letter of ‘Jackson’) LLO (three central or ‘pivotal’ letters of ‘pollock’)
24 BUREAU You are caught entering young man’s office (6)
U R (a homophone – ‘caught’ – of ‘you are’) in or ‘entering’ BEAU (young man)
26 CURL Heartless scoundrel regularly failing to turn up (4)
Alternate or ‘regular’ letters of sCoU(n)dReL without the middle letter or ‘heart’

 

9 comments on “Independent 10,389 by Serpent”

  1. Afraid I can’t help with the significance of the Nina, which I only semi-identified and had no idea about the Wittgenstein connection. Not as hard as today’s Picaroon but challenging enough, not helped by a few unfamiliar words such as OTIOSE and NIELLO and the unusual ‘lychee’ spelling.

    A very minor point and I may well be wrong, but I parsed EXEMPT as ‘Former’ = EX + ’employee casually’ = TEMP, with ‘taking time to finish’ = moving the T from the first to the last letter.

    CEREBRUM was very good. I find a ‘Cold beer’ can provide cruciverbal inspiration, ATAXIA and ‘strange thoughts’ in about equal measure!

    Thanks to Serpent and B&J

  2. Thanks WordPlodder – We agree with your parsing of EXEMPT. How did we go so wrong?
    When we are home we will sort things out on the blog.

  3. I thought I’d already posted being a Serpent fan but must have hit a wrong button

    I said that as soon as I get stuck in on of his puzzles I have a closer look at whats going on, I noticed LOGIC at first then found PHILOSO?… and that lead to tracking down the “beery swine” and his Opus Magnum helping me complete it.

    Another beauty and together with Picaroon made my day much better

    Thanks Jason and B&*J

  4. Parsed EXEMPT as WordPlodder. Also, although pt is short for point, the wording for 20a tells us to take the outside letters (PoinT) signified by “Case in”. Didn’t know the philosophy book or NIELLO. Geography is a weakness of mine, so NAXOS was also unknown but, at least, I did know OTIOSE & ATAXIA.

    Thanks to Serpent and Bertandjoyce.

  6. The Tractatus is one of my favourite books. It’s wrong, as Wittgenstein went on to demolish large parts of it in “Philosophical Investigations”, but its style is marvellous, particularly in the original German. (Yes, yes, I’m being wildly snobbish, but what’s a degree in Philosophy good for if you can’t wave it about on occasions such as this?)

    As a nina, it was of massive assistance with the RHS. Lovely puzzle.

  7. We found this tough going in places but completed it with just a little electronic help.  Last in were SAXON and MAXIM which we just couldn’t see for ages.  We couldn’t parse OCULAR, though it was obvious once we saw it – d’oh!  And we missed the obvious parsing of PLATINUM and took it that since ‘pt’ (lower case) is the abbreviation for ‘point’ one has to change the P to upper case to get Pt, the chemical symbol for platinum.  Why do we make things complicated when there’s a simple answer – maybe because we expect Serpent to be devious?

    We saw the nina – at least we spotted ‘philosophic’ and ‘logic’ though we weren’t sure about the rest of it – but it helped us get one or two answers.

    Thanks, Serpent and B&J.

  8. Not an enjoyable solve, I’m afraid.  I had to guess too many for it to be satisfying.  I didn’t spot the Nina (although I had heard of it) but not helped by entering POLESTAR in 10ac.  I couldn’t parse it, but that was true for about half the answers today.

  9. Excellent puzzle, was beginning to think their was a Nina, then dismissed it.  There have been a couple books published recently about Wittgenstein; perhaps Alchemi has read them.  I have merely read the reviews.

    13D it is only MIX that is reversed.

    Thanks to Serpent for a very entertaining puzzle and to Bertandjoyce for the blog.

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