Independent 11,001 by Serpent

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A Serpent puzzle to tie us up in knots this Saturday.

We look forward to solving a Serpent crossword and we were not disappointed today. There were a number of devious devices to disentangle with smooth surfaces throughout – 8d was one such clue.

We would normally expect to find a theme in Serpent’s puzzles, but we can’t see one here – any thoughts out there?

Thanks Serpent.

picture of the completed grid

ACROSS
1/5. Means of laundering cash, when aiming high? (7,7)
WASHING MACHINE

An anagram (‘high’) of CASH WHEN AIMING

9. Material not fit for use in Fight Club (5,4)
SCRAP IRON

SCRAP (fight) IRON (club)

10. 6 missing when coming back travelling at the speed of sound (5)
SONIC

CasINOS (6d) missing ‘as’ (when) and reversed or ‘coming back’

11. “Constructive play” destroying learner’s self-confidence (3)
EGO

LEGO (constructive play) without or ‘destroying’ L (learner)

12. Replacement of fossil fuels requires years longer to develop (5,6)
SOLAR ENERGY

An anagram (‘to develop’) of YEARS LONGER

13. Senior nurses content to pay attention to her? (6)
SISTER

SR (senior) around or ‘nursing’ middle letters only or ‘content’ of lISTEn (pay attention to)

14. Musical composed 32 pieces (5,3)
CHESS SET

CHESS (musical) SET (composed)

17. Fantasise about following old man around yard in the morning (8)
DAYDREAM

DAD (old man) around Y (yard) ‘followed by’ RE (about) AM (in the morning)

19. Number one hit about America? (6)
NATION

A reversal (‘about’) of NO (number) I (one) TAN (hit)

23. What is required to release 21 workers? (6,5)
LABOUR FORCE

A play on the fact that a team or force required to deliver or ‘release’ a baby (21d) could possibly be called a LABOUR FORCE

25. Try to contain love’s soppy stuff (3)
GOO

GO (try) around or ‘containing’ O (love)

26. Unknown speaker losing head suggests immaturity (5)
YOUTH

Y (unknown as used in maths) mOUTH (speaker) losing first letter or ‘head’

27. Data Romanian sent back contains desired target (9)
INAMORATA

Hidden (‘contained’) and reversed (‘sent back’) in dATA ROMANIan

28. Lawyer’s argument to remove barriers? (7)
DEFENCE

If you had to remove a fence or barrier you could say that you had to DE-FENCE

29. Operations room where available guards are transferred to begin with (7)
THEATRE

THERE (available) around or ‘guarding’ first letters or ‘beginnings’ of Are Transferred

DOWN
1. Ne’er-do-wells perhaps said little after dropping ecstasy (7)
WASTERS

WAS TERSe (said little) without or ‘dropping’ E (ecstasy)

2. Very grave case of leprosy (9)
SERIOUSLY

SERIOUS (grave) LeprosY (first and last letters only or ‘case’)

3. Has-been’s admission that makes progress impossible (7)
IMPASSE

A has-been may well admit ‘I’M PASSÉ’

4. Style of dress ends in small size 8 (6)
GARBLE

GARB (style of dress) and last letters or ‘ends’ of smalL sizE – ‘8’ being ‘encrypt’ at 8d

5. Stomach releasing tense, nervous reactions initially could produce butterflies (8)
MONARCHS

An anagram (‘could produce’) of StOMACH without or ‘releasing’ T (tense) and N R (first or ‘initial’ letters of Nervous Reactions)

6. Establishments that sell better chips (7)
CASINOS

A cryptic definition – ‘better’ being a gambler

7. Interior designer regularly developed new lines (5)
INNER

An anagram (‘developed’) of alternate or ‘regular’ letters in dEsIgNeR around or being ‘lined’ by N (new)

8. Gateway computer’s T&C changed and put into unintelligible form (7)
ENCRYPT

ENTRY PC (gateway computer) with T and C changing places

15. Hide transfer of large amount backing special honour (4,5)
SKIN GRAFT

RAFT (large amount) behind or ‘backing’ S (special) KING (honour)

16. Coffee shop receives fine after distributing legal high (8)
CAFFEINE

CAFE (coffee shop) around or ‘receiving’ an anagram (‘distributing’) of FINE

17. Put back legal document containing deposit (7)
DELAYED

DEED (legal document) around or ‘containing’ LAY (deposit)

18. Chap is hungover, but not very drunk (7)
ROUGHEN

An anagram (‘drunk’) of HUNGOvER without V (very)

20. This plant‘s turnover makes phenomenal contribution (7)
ANEMONE

Hidden (‘contributing to’) and reversed (‘turned over’) in phENOMENAl

21. Baby originally named by cracking joke (7)
NEONATE

NÉ (name at birth or ‘originally named’) + AT (by) inside or ‘cracking’ ONE (joke)

22. Loyal soldier leaving base to avoid training? (6)
TRUANT

TRUe (loyal) missing ‘e’ or base as used in maths + ANT (soldier)

24. Bank almost deceives punters by concealing weak holding (5)
BLUFF

BLUFFs (‘deceives punters by concealing a weak holding’ – as in a hand in cards) missing last letter or ‘almost’

17 comments on “Independent 11,001 by Serpent”

  1. A much quicker solve for me than usual for a Serpent but couldn’t see any hidden extra either but feel there must be one. Had to use a word fit for TRUANT but the rest fell fairly readily.

    Liked SCRAP IRON = FIGHT CLUB, the nice anagram for SOLAR ENERGY and the sneaky ENCRYPT. The strange fantasy at 17a raised a chuckle.

  2. Aha! Now I’ve read Hovis’s comment – a sample size of one – I suspect this must have been a more approachable Serpent than usual. Normally a setter who instils some trepidation and yet I found myself solving the clues in numerical order until about half way through. The tricks and devices just seemed to naturally solve today. No idea why.

    That is NOT to say it wasn’t great fun and the devices clever. Just that the right way of interpreting them seemed to click. The anagram for WASHING MACHINE is fun, nice use of Lego, the definition of CHESS SET, that clever reverse hidden INAMORATA, the brilliant clueing of ENCRYPT and its linkage with GARBLE, the misdirection of ‘Chap’ in ROUGHEN. Wonderfully creative throughout and the surfaces are so smooth and relevant.

    All that said, the smallest of quiblets: I know joke and ‘one’ are occasionally equated – “that’s a good one” – but I find them the most tenuous of synonyms, and I’m not sure about ‘king’ = honour. I’m probably missing something but thought honours were generally earned or conferred. Kingships, today, are inherited and, in the past, have been secured by war or marriage but that doesn’t fit with my perception of ‘honour’.

    Thanks Serpent and B&J

  3. My thoughts on this crossword completely align with those of B&J in their preamble, complete with the fact that I couldn’t find the usual Serpent ‘hidden’ something in the grid

    Thanks to him and to B&J

  6. Brilliant. Thanks Hovis. New to me so I needed the explanation and would never have thought to go there. Quiblet withdrawn.

  7. A slow one for me to get out, but satisfying to fill the grid correctly. Had trouble with parsing a few and missed the almost too obvious BLUFF in the end. KING for ‘honour’ went in with “I must be missing something”, like PM @2. Couldn’t see a theme, Nina or other sort of acrostic either.

    Thanks to Serpent and B&J

  8. Many thanks to bertandjoyce for the excellent blog and to everyone who has taken the time to post a comment.

    There is a ghost theme, but it’s pretty niche…

  14. Agree with Hovis and PostMark. Perhaps this seemed a little easier than usual because 1/5 across was so accessible. Would never have seen the theme without the directions. Thanks to Serpent and B&J.

  16. For those still waiting for the theme to be identified, an American group 10ac, 26ac had LP albums entitled 1ac, 5ac; 13ac; 17ac, 19ac and 25ac. I may have missed some others because I wasn’t interested enough to read the Wikipedia entry in detail.

  17. Well, I’ve vaguely heard of Sonic Youth, but I certainly couldn’t name any of their œuvre.

    Needed a bit of help to finish this.

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