Independent 10,437 by Serpent

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Serpent challenges the old grey matter today.

As we expect from Serpent, this was a tricky but really enjoyable solve.
Serpent sometimes has a theme or a nina in his puzzles, but we can’t see anything in this one – are we missing something?

image of grid

ACROSS
8 Messenger decapitated by good shot (6)
GUNNER

rUNNER (messenger) with the first letter omitted or ‘decapitated’ and replaced by G (good)

9 Purge lists to block extremists on committee (7)
CLEANSE

LEANS (lists) in or ‘blocking’ C E (first and last letters or ‘extremists’ of committee)

11 Player works naked (5)
ACTOR

fACTORy (works) without the first and last letters or ‘naked’

12 Rigorous testing starts to reveal necessary changes (9)
STRINGENT

An anagram of TESTING and R and N (first letters or ‘starts’ of reveal necessary) – anagrind is ‘changes’

13 Potential candidates aggravated boss with spiel (9)
POSSIBLES

An anagram of BOSS and SPIEL – anagrind is ‘aggravated’

15 Suffer at home with effective treatment in short supply (5)
INCUR

IN (at home) CURe (effective treatment) without the last letter or ‘in short supply’

16 Rent nondescript houses (3)
RIP

Hidden or ‘housed’ in nondescRIPt

18 Crack addict’s case time after time yielding nothing (7)
ATTEMPT

AddicT (first and last letters only, or ‘case’) TEMPo (time) T (time) without or ‘yielding’ the ‘o’ (nothing)

19 Show bottom’s not new low (3)
MOO

MOOn (show bottom) without ‘n’ (new)

21 Refuse to be guilty of excessive consumption (5)
WASTE

Double definition

22 Dance act raises sequence of steps to new level (9)
STAIRCASE

An anagram of ACT RAISES – anagrind is ‘dance’

24 Person objecting to previous and current things for starters (9)
ANTIPASTI

ANTI (person objecting) PAST (previous) I (current)

27 Seasonal workers understand about very large wheels (5)
ELVES

SEE (understand) round V (very) L (large), all reversed or ‘wheeling’

28 Writer about to back revolutionary book’s sentiment (7)
EMOTION

I (writer) ON (about) after or ‘backing’ TOME (book) reversed or ‘revolutionary’

29 Inexperienced person unable to get a grip? (6)
NOVICE

If you have NO VICE (the tool) you would be unable to get a grip

DOWN
1 Speech marks out quest to obtain love (6)
QUOTES

An anagram of QUEST (anagrind is ‘out’) round or ‘obtaining’ O (love)

2 Police officer wearing fancy clothes lacking restraint (10)
INORDINATE

DI (detective inspector – police officer) in or ‘clothed by’ IN (wearing) ORNATE (fancy)

3 Converts writing style with training (10)
PROSELYTES

PROSE (writing) + an anagram of STYLE – anagrind is ‘with training’

4 Damage resulting from panic before onset of epidemic (4)
SCAR

SCARe (panic) without the ‘e’ (first letter or ‘onset’ of epidemic)

5 Head started to lose heart (4)
BEAN

BEgAN (started) without or ‘losing’ the middle letter or ‘heart’

6 Citroen beginning to make mobile phone system (8)
INTERCOM

An anagram of CITROEN and M (first letter or ‘beginning’ of make) – anagrind is ‘mobile’

7 Top person of superior quality recovered more fully (6)
BETTER

Quadruple definition see comments from Simon S and Serpent below. 

10 Person in temporary accommodation is more obviously affected (6)
CAMPER

Double definition

14 Charged items under “something for local operations providing additional services“? (10)
SUMMATIONS

IONS (charged items) after or ‘under’ SUMMAT (dialect or ‘local’ version of something)

15 Continental football players abandon position regularly (10)
INTERLEAVE

INTER (continental football players – Inter Milan) LEAVE (abandon)

17 Is proton decaying into antimatter? (8)
POSITRON

An anagram of IS PROTON – anagrind is ‘decaying’

20 Nomadic Danes go here regularly (6)
ODENSE

Clue-as-definition – an anagram of the alternate or ‘regular’ letters of DaNeS gO hErE – anagrind is ‘nomadic’

21 He can’t be trusted with artist’s support (6)
WEASEL

W (with) EASEL (artist’s support)

23 Counsel against getting involved in a game of chance (6)
ADVICE

V (against) in A DICE (game of chance)

25 Distress is something quite clear to the audience (4)
PAIN

A homophone (‘to the audience’) of PANE (something quite clear)

26 Forward‘s goal topped by striker’s header (4)
SEND

END (goal) after or ‘topped by’ S (first letter or ‘head’ of striker)

14 comments on “Independent 10,437 by Serpent”

  1. Nina is on main diagonal.

    Excellent as always. Struggled far too long in parsing EMOTION but got there in the end.

    Thanks to Serpent and Bertandjoyce.

  3. As usual, I enjoyed my battle with the Serpent – I even remembered to look for, and saw, the Nina too.

    Thanks to Serpent and B&J

  4. This was a struggle for me and afraid I had to recourse to a wordsearch for a couple.  I did spot the Nina and hoped to be first to report it, so well done Hovis.  I suspect it’s something personal to Serpent.  Strangely a friend of mine called Millie passed away earlier this year.  Thanks Serpent and B&J.

  5. Thanks Serpent and BnJ

    Excellent puzzle, and I both remembered to look for the nina and spotted it.

    I think the definitions split in 7 is slightly awry. The first two should be ‘better’ (as verb) and ‘person of superior quality’.

  6. Couldn’t see the Nina despite looking everywhere but the diagonals – look forward to hearing what it means. Quite hard work, apart from the search for the Nina, and ended up missing the parsing of EMOTION.

    Favourite was the quadruple def BETTER – the wordplay can be split at least a couple of slightly different ways to get the four meanings, as noted by Simon S @5. The most interesting clue was my last in ODENSE, which with the crossers in place could (semi-) plausibly be parsed as a cryptic def to give ‘Odessa’.

    Thanks to Serpent and B&J.

  7. We couldn’t see the nina till we were told there was one and then it was obvious.  But of course it wasn’t needed to solve the puzzle, which we did unaided, although some parsings, such as EMOTION and INORDINATE took a while to work out.

    We thought the surface of 15ac was nicely topical – co-incidence, or reworked in the last couple of days?  The same might apply to 4dn and 10dn as well.

    Favourites, though were SUMMATIONS and POSITRON.

    Thanks, Serpent and B&J.

  8. Many thanks to Bertandjoyce for the customary excellent blog. And thanks to everyone who has taken the time to post a comment.

    Simon S @5 has my intended parsing of BETTER. allan_c @7 is correct in thinking several of the clues have topical surfaces.

    This puzzle was written very recently recently to commemorate the death of my dog MILLIE (aka MILLIE MOO and MILLIE BEAN). I hope everyone will forgive me the indulgence.

  10. Thanks to Simon S and Serpent for clarifying 7d. Also, no forgiveness needed Serpent. We are just annoyed we didn’t spot the nina.

  11. All correct, but not all parsed. Spotted the Nina on the diagonal, plus RIP MOO, but of course I didn’t know who/what it referred to.
    Thanks to JC for letting us know.

  12. I liked the clue for (millie) bean – and all the topical stuff

     

    Many thanks Serpent, so sorry to hear about Millie. Thanks for sharing in this way.

    and thanks JC

  14. Serpent @8 thanks for that and commiserations.I can see diagonals better in barred puzzles.

    We had a big hole dug for our elderly Dane cross before Christmas but the vet gave her an injection and some tablets and she is still rallying some three months later.She is driven by food

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