My heart sank a bit when I saw that I was blogging a Serpent: he’s dreadfully hard, isn’t he? Well no, not actually: there were some easy ones so that the start was OK; then I got rather stuck and was slow to complete. But the clues (apart from 28ac possibly: no doubt I shall be corrected — yes I was, by baerchen, many thanks, I thought that would happen) were sound and good. Nice crossword.
Definitions underlined, in maroon. Anagram indicators in italics.
Reading clockwise round the perimeter, the unches give NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS, an album that is referred to in 9ac. There are probably some more Sex Pistols references; the only one I saw was the word ‘anarchy’ in 24ac, but cognoscenti will I’m sure find more.
| Across | ||
| 6 | STEEPLE | Retro album cover for Travis is high point (7) |
| (elpee T{ravi}s)rev. | ||
| 7 | RAILS | Rotten liar’s rants (5) |
| (liar’s)* | ||
| 9 | SEX PISTOLS | They appeared on boundary-defining album (3,7) |
| At first I thought this was a remarkably feeble CD, hardly cryptic at all, but then I saw the Nina hidden in the outside unches, after which it all makes sense | ||
| 10 | DRAM | Drink and drive in the morning (4) |
| dr. AM | ||
| 11 | KEENED | Moaned about study that scared me (6) |
| (den eek!)rev. | ||
| 13 | PASTRAMI | Fresh pitas filled with butter and meat (8) |
| past(ram)i, the pasti being (pitas)* | ||
| 14 | CUSS | Obstinate person taking courses at regular intervals (4) |
| c{o}u{r}s{e}s | ||
| 16 | CLIFF | Reduce speed following double bluff (5) |
| cli{p} f f | ||
| 18 | EARN | Win is one way to retain The Ashes reportedly (4) |
| I think this is two pieces of wordplay: ‘one way to retain’ is a sort of definition of ‘earn’, as in ‘retainer’; “urn” | ||
| 19 | OBSTACLE | Let drunk close tab (8) |
| (close tab)* | ||
| 21 | EXTEND | Reach conclusion after reading everything but the introduction (6) |
| {t}ext end — reading is to be taken as a noun here | ||
| 23 | LAST | Most unsuitable model for Oxford’s Assembly? (4) |
| Whenever a clue talks about Oxford a shoe is quite likely to be involved: the assembly of an Oxford shoe is done on the last (at least it used to be; not sure about nowadays) — the definition ‘last’ as in ‘that’s the last thing he should be wearing’ | ||
| 24 | MONARCHIST | Unbridled anarchy disturbs drippy Queen fan perhaps (10) |
| mo({a}narch{y})ist | ||
| 27 | EDICT | Final three of seventeen return court order (5) |
| 17dn being FREE RIDE, its last three letters are ide; so it’s (ide)rev. ct | ||
| 28 | MODESTY | Decency of every other character in smutty song’s lines (7) |
| odes in {s}m{u}t{t}y — |
||
| Down | ||
| 1 | NEEP | New record releases with something for the Scottish market (4) |
| ne{w} EP — at around this time of year, with Burns night looming, we are reminded of ‘neeps and tatties’ — neeps are turnips in Scottish (swedes, as allan_c says; but I’d have thought that turnips and swedes were at some point regarded as much the same, because of the similarity in sound between ‘neeps’ and the last syllable of ‘turnips’) | ||
| 2 | EPISODIC | Fragmented story going on at length about lives upset party (8) |
| ep(is (do)rev.)ic | ||
| 3 | VETO | Ban selection of executive toys (4) |
| Hidden in executiVE TOys | ||
| 4 | ERASES | Removes bodies from very easy test (6) |
| {v}er{y} {e}as{y} {t}es{t} | ||
| 5 | RINDERPEST | Submission originally reprinted inaccurate condition of stock (10) |
| (S{ubmission} reprinted)* | ||
| 6 | SUEDE | Band material influenced broadcast (5) |
| 2 defs and “swayed” — in case you don’t know, or am I the only one in the world who was only half sure, Suede is a rock band | ||
| 8 | STAMMER | Have problems repeating oneself to begin with (7) |
| CD | ||
| 12 | NOSE TO TAIL | I refuse to flush as toilet’s completely blocked (4,2,4) |
| no! (as toilet)* — the anagram being indicated by ‘flush’ | ||
| 13 | PRIME | Press release initially upset EMI chief (5) |
| P{ress} r{elease} (EMI)rev. | ||
| 15 | UMBRAGE | Bringing up Australian native stealing clothing causes offence (7) |
| (e(garb)mu)rev. | ||
| 17 | FREE RIDE | Dire outcome of participation having no consequences? (4,4) |
| A reverse anagram: dire is an anagram (indicated by ‘free’) of ‘ride’ | ||
| 20 | COME TO | Small business satisfied with round figure for total (4,2) |
| co. met O — total as a verb | ||
| 22 | NASTY | Vicious American disembowelled sweetheart in New York (5) |
| N(A s{weethear}t)Y | ||
| 25 | NUMB | No expression of doubt in song having no feelings (4) |
| numb{er} — this one’s parsing escaped me for a while, since the answer was almost certainly NUMB, but the expression of doubt looked like ‘um’ | ||
| 26 | HASH | Chop up small offcut from hardwood tree (4) |
| h{ardwood} ash — I’m not absolutely comfortable with ‘offcut from’ to indicate the first letter, but I think that’s what it is | ||
*anagram
great puzzle; Thanks to Serpent &John. The Nina helped a lot in the NE, as did knowing a bit of German.
In 28, ode’s =song’s and “lines” is the inclusion indicator.
Rotten and Vicious, anarchy all are found in the clues, but I’m no Pistols fan and there’s bound to be more
Thanks Serpent, John
Pleased to finish, didn’t find the easy starters John mentioned. The ‘remarkably feeble CD’ was my LOI, only after I’d got the first letter from the album, and only after I’d guessed something wrong and ridiculous. I liked CLIFF. Was he in the band?
28’s apostrophe kinda niggles me, although I suppose it shouldn’t. SEX PISTOLS I wanted more from, as ‘boundary-defining’ doesn’t mean much to me. But there’s value in a Serpent puzzle, I find, outweighing any annoying apostrophes, or missed ‘Hoskportunities’.
It’s Tuesday in the Indy; the grid is odd; even Nina-blind folk like me have their suspicions aroused. So it was that I saw NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS early doors, which helped with a quick completion. Like baerchen, I was never into the Pistols, so I was surprised to read about all the fuss there was when the record came out: a record shop owner in Nottingham was prosecuted for repeatedly displaying the album in his window, on the basis that the word BOLLOCKS would offend public decency or some such. It was 1977, for chuff’s sake.
Good, fun, puzzle. Thanks to S&B.
Great puzzle. I was struggling a bit and then I saw the grid shape which was crying nina-and like other solvers, that helped me to the finish line. Very subtle.(Unlike the subject)
Thanks Serpent and John.
We too aren’t/weren’t Sex Pistols aficionados so some of the references passed us by, but we did spot the nina which helped us to finish, although we got some answers without being able to parse them. Plenty of good non-themed clues that we enjoyed, PASTRAMI was our favourite. We had no problems with HASH – in fact as offcuts are (usually) small we wondered if ‘small’ was strictly necessary in the clue. And, btw, although ‘neeps’ is a Scots contraction of ‘turnips’, neeps are in fact swedes.
Thanks, Serpent and John.
Just about gave up on this as I found it v. tough, but came back after a break and things slowly yielded, with enlightenment at the very end after SEX PISTOLS was last in and the Nina was then spotted. Being the only person in the world who has never heard of SUEDE as a band, the double def. + wordplay subtleties of 6d passed me by. Spelling out the ‘retro album’ in full in 6a also stumped me, as did the ‘small offcut’ in 26d.
Favourite bit was having CLIFF there right at the very centre.
Thanks to Serpent and John.
Many thanks to John for the great blog and to everyone who’s taken the time to solve and comment.
I seem to be the only Sex Pistols fan in the room! As Baerchen pointed out, ‘[Johnny] Rotten’ and ‘[Sid] Vicious’, the two most notorious members of the band, are referenced in the clues, as is ‘anarchy’ (referring to ‘Anarchy in the UK’, one of the four singles from the album). The title of each track on the album, except the four singles, is included in the clues: Bodies, Liar, No Feelings, Problems, Seventeen, Submission, New York and E.M.I.
Get ready for a PiL-themed puzzle…
Serpent @8-the Pistols were a very important part of Brit Rock-I dont remember Sid playing on their records but image was everything!
This puzzle kept me slogging away for some time, and I needed help with ERASES and RINDERPEST. I totally missed the band references and only got the SEX PISTOLS from crossers and enumeration. The Nina also passed me by(as usual), although even if I’d seen it, it wouldn’t have meant anything to me. I was fortunate to have come across SUEDE as a homophone for SWAYED in a recent Times puzzle, but got the other bit of the definition from a suede hat band or similar:-) I was delayed by trying SATIN as the band material that influenced until I got SEX PISTOLS. I enjoyed the rest of the puzzle though. CUSS was my first entry and KEENED the last after SUEDE. Thanks Serpent and John.
It took me quite some time to really get into Serpent’s mindset this time.
For too long the grid looked like the average road in what is now my home town (from a cyclist’s perspective): patches all over the place and full of holes.
Then I saw CLIFF in the centre and was looking for a band in 9ac with only the O in place. So, I entered ‘The Shadows’ which made me accuse Serpent of having written a very poor cryptic definition. Luckily, another band (SUEDE) put me on the right track. Just thinking of yet another band, I came up with SEX PISTOLS and finally ….. the nina! It opened up the crossword completely and I finished it before the lads had the chance to save the Queen and her fascist regime (their words, not mine).
Despite having ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’ in my collection, as a CD not an LP, I didn’t look any further to find more references.
So, there we are.
Thanks to Serpent who almost beat me today, & John.
Just remembered I forgot to comment on this one. Another great puzzle – got the theme about two thirds of the way through and it definitely helped with the last few…
Thanks to Serpent and John