BASILISK provides this Monday morning challenge…
I think the first time BASILISK has cropped up on a Monday (at least as far as I can remember), and they certainly forced me to wake up and think after the long Jubilee weekend. Excellent clues all round, with some of the parsing proving rather tricky. I spent far too long on 14ac for example.
There is a Nina, reading “We live in financial times” around the inside perimeter…
Thanks BASILISK!
ACROSS
1. Come out again to harvest fruit (8)
REAPPEAR
REAP (harvest) + PEAR (fruit)
5. Unofficial call to block further education (6)
FRINGE
RING (call) to block FE (further education)
9. Funny games cut short by author of fiction (8)
PECULIAR
PE (games) + CU[t] (short) by LIAR (author of fiction)
10. Former pupils upset Milan University dons (6)
ALUMNI
(MILAN)* (*upset), U (university) dons
12. Women in parliamentary constituency do difficult work (5)
SWEAT
W (women) in SEAT (parliamentary constituency)
13. Strengthen fine wines, ultimately breaking tiny rum bottles (9)
INTENSIFY
(FINE + [wine]S (ultimately))* (*breaking), (TINY)* (*rum) bottles
14. Easy test in which top mark goes to first person (6)
SIMPLE
SAMPLE (test) in which A (top mark) goes to I (first person)
16. Restriction in Barnet Hospital being shown briefly about parking (7)
HAIRPIN
H (hospital) + AIRIN[g] (being shown, briefly) about P (parking
Barnet (fair) being rhyming slang for hair
19. Try to make contacts in the fishing industry? (7)
NETWORK
Double (cryptic) definition
21. Current doctor probing bird and animal shelter (6)
PIGPEN
(I (current) + GP (doctor)) probing PEN (bird)
23. Messy situation involving criminal mob and oil rig (9)
IMBROGLIO
(MOB and OIL RIG)* (*criminal)
25. He’s backed service embracing religious teaching (5)
FRIAR
(RAF)< (service, <backed) embracing RI (religious teaching) &lit
26. Part of what forms individual is somewhat flexible (6)
LISSOM
[individua]L IS SOM[ewhat] (part of)
27. Exercising again and again is boring (8)
DRILLING
28. Formal and dull cases persist regularly (6)
DRESSY
DRY (dull) cases [p]E[r]S[i]S[t] (regularly)
29. Rotten, corrupt, Independent politician ousting Republican unable to function in Congress (8)
IMPOTENT
([r]OTTEN, (I (independent) + MP (politician) ousting R (republican)))* (*corrupt)
DOWN
1. Calm attitude backing head of state up (6)
REPOSE
POSE (attitude) backing (ER)< (head of state, <up)
2. Is cracking transmutation of metal her concern primarily? (9)
ALCHEMIST
IS cracking (METAL + H[er] + C[oncern] (primarily))* (*transmutation) &lit
3. Trial of man responsible for death of Jesus reportedly (5)
PILOT
“Pilate” (man responsible for death of Jesus, “reportedly”)
4. Desire for money is at the heart of German state church (7)
AVARICE
[b]AVARI[a] (heart of German state) + CE (church)
6. Easing up on branch hoarding new money (9)
RELENTING
RE (on) + LEG (branch) hoarding (N (new) + TIN (money))
7. Openings in new international markets begin interesting shower producers (5)
NIMBI
N[ew] I[nternational] M[arkets] B[egin] I[nteresting] (openings in)
8. English final filled with uncertainty is improving (8)
EDIFYING
E (english) + DYING (final) filled with IF (uncertainty)
11. Eat out in France and Switzerland (4)
ETCH
ET (and, in France) + CH (Switzerland)
15. Seemingly, primitive defiles standards of etiquette (9)
PROTOCOLS
PROTO- (primitive) + COLS (defiles, valleys)
17. Sharp drop in cost covering essential ingredients of recipe (9)
PRECIPICE
PRICE (cost) covering [r]ECIP[e] (essential ingredients of)
18. A French girl from Paris died hungry? (8)
UNFILLED
UN (a, in French) + FILLE (girl from Paris) + D (died)
20. What may be found in snorkel, perhaps? (4)
KELP
[snor]KEL P[erhaps] (found in) &lit
21. What may be used for last bit of defragging memory? (7)
PROGRAM
PRO (for) + [defraggin]G (last bit of) + RAM memory &lit
22. What might cause one to start quarrel about king? (6)
FRIGHT
FIGHT (quarrel) about R (king)
24. Put fat on bottom when eating tons (5)
BASTE
BASE (bottom) eating T (tons)
25. Recurring feature of idiotic fool spoiled part of book (5)
FOLIO
(I (recurring feature of idiotic) + FOOL)* (*spoiled)
As per usual with Basilisk / Serpent, there’s something going on in the grid…
Good fun, also as usual. Appropriately enough I was held up by my last in ‘Easy, at 14a and also took a while to get PROTOCOLS; should be on the lookout more for the geographical meaning of ‘defiles’.
Thanks to Basilisk and Teacow
Woops, missed your last sentence Teacow. Sorry!
Another enjoyable outing from Basilisk. Needed the nina to finish off with PROTOCOLS, SIMPLE & PECULIAR my last ones in. I didn’t particularly care for the construction in 29a which seems to lead to OTENTIMP. Perhaps if the initial two words were interchanged?
Thanks for parsing SIMPLE. Missed that one.
Liked SIMPLE and ALCHEMIST.
Thanks, Band T!
Tricky for a Monday, but spotting the Nina did help with the last few clues
Thanks to Basilisk and Teacow
Was surprised but pleased to see Basilisk on a Monday and, as Teacow says, felt I’d better brace myself for a stern challenge.
It turned out to be milder than expected with everything completed at a steady pace. Perhaps Basilisk was resting his fangs as it is just the start of the week.
However, I needed help parsing a few, the not so SIMPLE (for me) being among them. PROTOCOLS was my LOI for the same reason as Wordplodder, I expect.
I remembered to check the grid but only after finishing and was suitably impressed with what I found.
I nominate HAIRPIN as my favourite today.
Thanks for the absorbing puzzle, Basilisk and Teacow for the unraveling.
When I started this crossword last evening I reminded myself to look for a nina upon completion; when I finished this morning I forgot to do so. (That makes PROGRAM an apt clue for me.) As usual with Basilisk there were many excellent clues, ALCHEMIST, ETCH, KELP, FOLIO, and IMPOTENT among them. I liked IMPOTENT for its surface though I agree with Hovis @3 regarding its word order. There were many, many gaps in my attempt to parse everything; thanks Teacow for the help.
That’s as clever a NINA as I’ve seen. Wish I had spotted it!!
Knowing that Basilisk/Serpent has form when it comes to ninas just inside the perimeter we were on the lookout for one – and weren’t disappointed. It helped, too, in getting all the answers, although we couldn’t parse everything.
Favourites were the two &lits, FRIAR and ALCHEMIST.
Thanks, Basilisk and Teacow.
Thanks Basilisk and Teacow
29ac: I took it as “Rotten, corrupt,” giving us ROTENT and then IMP actively ousting the letter R and replacing it to give the answer IMPOTENT. I cannot find support for this meaning of “oust” in Chambers, but the setter himself, as Serpent in the Independent, has used it that way at least once before:
https://www.fifteensquared.net/2021/04/10/independent-10762-by-serpent/
Many thanks to Teacow for the excellent blog and to everyone who has taken the time to post a comment.
Pelham Barton has identified my intended parsing of IMPOTENT, although, having checked Chambers, I may be on slightly dodgy ground and Hovis’s comment @3 seems reasonable! However, Collins does have “supplant” as one meaning of “oust” (and Chambers Thesaurus has both words as synonyms of each other), which makes me feel better.
Pelham Barton @10. I’m probably being thick (again) but your parsing matches mine, i.e. ROTENT then IMP, ousting R to give OTENTIMP. I don’t see how the wording puts IMP at the beginning. If you take the whole thing as an anagram (OTENTIMP)* then I felt that the anagram indicator was misplaced. Happy to be corrected.
Thanks Basilisk for dropping in. Although I only own Chambers, I am happy to accept Collins as an equally good authority. When solving, it did not occur to me to question the use of “oust” to mean “supplant”, which felt entirely right to me.
Hovis @12: Having read your comment, I can see that my description of the parsing was ambiguous. The version I did not mean was the one that matches yours, and allows a comma to be placed after IMP. If you had not put that comma into your comment, I would probably still not have seen the ambiguity in my comment. My intended meaning was “first rearrange the letters of ROTTEN to give ROTENT, and then replace the R by IMP to make IMPOTENT”. I did not mean “and then” to refer to joining letter sequences together, but rather following one operation by another.
I hope the above makes sense without going over the top, but am happy to have another go if it will help.
Pelham @13. Of course. That makes perfect sense. Can’t believe I didn’t see that.
Thanks folks-missed this yesterday what with Genius and Iq so was pleased to see this posted.
A treat for a Monday-not quite sure of the message
Thanks Teacow and Jason.
Great crossword. Simple and protocols took me a long time.
Thanks Basilisk and Teacow
Certainly one with some grist to start off the week. Missed the nina, so had to slog it out from first principles and was pleased to get it all out and mostly parsed – a couple where they weren’t exactly right – over-complicated things by swapping I’M for A M in SIMPLE and had I MP ([R]OTTEN) for IMPOTENT without getting the grammar correct as illustrated by Pelham. There was a bit to do with piecing together the charades of a few others, including INTENSIFY, ALCHEMIST, RELENTING and EDIFYING.
An enjoyable puzzle which ended after a bit over the hour in the SW corner with NETWORK, UNFILLED and the trickily hidden LISSOM.