Independent 9404 by Serpent

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Sorry for the late delivery of this blog.  Completely forgot it was my turn.

I will have to work out how to wire my smoke alarm to the calendar alerts.

We may be in Advent, but Serpent gives an Easter Egg around the perimeter.
There is THE INDEPENDENT both clockwise and anti-clockwise from the top left corner.
I am not sure if there is a reason for this besides a celebration of the paper.
I got off to a good start with the first two clues read answered 8A and 1D both hiddens, and followed up in short order with 2D and 3D thus delivering the THE.
It really helped with solving because I spotted it early enough to give me a number of valuable first and last letters to the rest of the unsolved answers which made them much more accessible.

indy_9404

Across
8 THREAD Connecting line passing through South Reading (6)
Hidden in souTH READing
9 TRADE GAP Call to move quickly over evidence of unbalanced economy (5,3)
All Reversed: PAGE (call) DART (move quickly)
10 HAWKSBILL TURTLE This animal‘s bulk will shatter on the rocks (9,6)
(BULK WILL SHATTER)* AInd: on the rocks
11 ETHEREAL Airy acknowledgement others helped to wrap present (8)
HERE (present) inside ET AL (others)
13 LESSON Reading is not so busy (6)
LESS ON
14 ISIS Emergency credit’s withdrawn where one might take a punt (4)
CRISIS – CR[edit]
16 GENUS American intelligence takes precedence in class (5)
US before GEN (intelligence)
17 MILD Doctor swallows contents of pill having little effect (4)
[p]IL[l] inside MD
18 NUNCIO Diplomat representing Catholic Union (6)
(C[atholic] UNION )* AInd: representing.  A near &Lit (?)
20 DUCT TAPE
 What may reduce leaks is fool acquiring some form of tact (4,4)
TACT* AInd: some form of, inside DUPE (fool)
23 DECONTAMINATION Maintain code not requiring recompilation or debugging? (15)
W (MAINTAIN CODE NOT)* AInd: requiring recompilation. I could see this anagram on first reading, but with crossing letters suggesting ATION at the end, and the M the rest easily appeared.
25 EUPHORIA Ecstasy sets off debauched house parties (8)
(HOUSE PARTIES – SETS)* AInd: debauched.  One of the trickier clues. I had the leading E from the perimeter and was misled to think Ecstasy was part of the wordplay.
26 TWO-BIT
 Spooner’s express disapproval of idiot is worth little (3-3)
Spoonerisation of “Boo tit”
Down
1 THWART Defeat attributed to stealth war tactics (6)
Hidden in stealTH WAR Tactics
2 HECKLERS Essentially they vacuously cheek live routines (8)
[t]HE[y] C[hee]K L[iv]E R[outine]S  &Lit!
3 EDIBLE Transport belied description of fare (6)
BELIED* AInd: transport
4 ITAL
 Scotsman leaves kind of restaurant catering for Rastafarian (4)
ITALIAN – IAN.  IAN the archetypal Scotsman being ejected from Mario’s archetypal trattoria to leave Ital: ” food often celebrated by those in the Rastafari movement”  according to Wiki
5 NAUTILUS
 Creature of deep gold, lit up in rising sun (8)
AU (gold) LIT< inside SUN<
6 DEBRIS
 Rubbish review created issue around book (6)
SIRED (created issue) rversed (review) around B[ook]
7 EAGLE OWL
 Birdie beat low score, taking one stroke less, to go into lead (5,3)
(LOW)* AInd: beat.  After EAGLE (2-under, one stroke less [than a birdie – 1-under])   Last One In after wondering whether it was to do with golf or not, finally getting all the crossing letters, then taking ages untangling the wordplay.
12 LINED Song about man’s bottom displaying signs of age (5)
LIED (song) about [ma]N
15 SOUPED UP
 Enhanced thus, one produces paper at university before and after (6-2)
WSO (thus) ED[itor] (one produces paper) inside UP and UP (at university)
16 GOOD TURN
 Saw claims that this warrants repetition (4,4)
Cryptic Def. referring to “One good turn deserves another”
17 MUTATION
 Change eroding mutual admiration in equal proportions (8)
Now this was somne interesting wordplay: MUT[ual] [admir]ATION.  Equal parts of the fodder taken.
19 CLOTHE
 In recession, city banks reluctant to invest (6)
EC (city) reversed (in recession) around LOTH (reluctant)
21 CENOTE
 Well that’s natural Church School is making a comeback (6)
CE (Church) ETON<  I have not encountered CENOTE before <wiki link> but the wordplay was clear.
22 PROFIT
 In favour of meeting requirements for benefit (6)
PRO (in favour of) FIT (meeting requirements)
24 MEAD Tailor made something to drink (4)
MADE* AInd: tailor

9 comments on “Independent 9404 by Serpent”

  1. I really enjoy Serpent’s puzzles which are generally pitched at the tough end of my abilities as a solver. Fortunately for me, I spotted the double Nina “early doors” without which I would definitely have struggled much more than turned out to be the case.
    Thanks to S&B

  2. Can’t think of a specific reason for the Nina, except that it was the paper’s [sic] 30th in October and the puzzle may have been inadvertently overlooked.

    Great work all the way, I thought – EUPHORIA and EAGLE OWL were beauties, but there were other belters too. Thank you, beermagnet and Serpent.

  3. Thanks for the blog beermagnet.

    There are some wonderful pieces of wordplay in this puzzle, allied to very convincing surfaces. 25 across makes my point perfectly.

    A wrestling match fully worthy of a Saturday. Respect to Serpent (again).

  4. What Conrad@3 said.

    The nina certainly helped with the NW corner, where I took ages to get 8ac as 13ac set me looking for another synonym for ‘reading’.

    Thanks, Serpent and beermagnet.

  5. Very enjoyable puzzle made a bit easier by the nina.

    Fully agree with Conrad@3 about the inventive clueing and natural surfaces.

  6. I would like to echo the general praise for this crossword.
    Serpent is clearly a setter who finds precision of cluing important, meanwhile trying to write sufaces that make sense.
    Surfaces are never beautified at the expense of cryptic grammar (ah, that word again!).

    While I cannot be bothered too much by a nina like today’s, I must admit that it helped me finding the last bits of this relatively tough crossword.
    And yes, this kind of grid cries out for a nina.

    If I may be pedantic, I found it a pity that PROFIT (22d) was defined by ‘benefit’ because of the overlapping ‘fit’ bit.
    But hey, that’s only a minor thing with so much variety and inventiveness in the clues.

    Last time I commented on a Serpent puzzle I said that I found his cluing somewhat ‘earnest’.
    It would be nice if at some point some of his surfaces would deal a bit more with the ‘actual world we live in’ (politics, music, sports, whatever).
    That was what I meant then.
    It is still something that I would welcome.
    Among the ‘newbies’ (and perhaps beyond) Serpent is technically one of the very best.
    If he could add what I said three lines ago, he could easily rush into my Top 10.

    Many thanks to the setter for an excellent puzzle.
    And beermagnet for the blog.

  9. Like others, I was helped by the Nina, though took me a while to spot it. V. enjoyable with plenty to keep the brain ticking over – CENOTE and ITAL were new and both animals took some nutting out. Liked SOUPED UP, LESSON, the &lit HECKLERS and the “near &lit” NUNCIO.

    Excellent Saturday fare.

    Thank you to Serpent and beermagnet.

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