Apologies to Serpent – you have us blogging your puzzle again. As we are not complaining, we hope you aren’t either.
Serpent’s last puzzle had a message across the diagonal THIS ISN’T A NINA which we missed totally. Often he includes a hidden message in the unchecked letters either around the perimeter but often inside the grid. Try as we could, we haven’t been able to spot anything.
That hasn’t detracted from our enjoyment of the puzzle though. Lots of smooth surfaces throughout as expected.
If there are any errors or if someone spots a theme or NINA we may not be able to respond quickly. Our Station Adopters’ Group has been short-listed for a national award – Best Community Engagement Project – organised by Community Rail Network and we are travelling over to Manchester (trains permitting!) to find out if we have been successful.
EX (former partner) IS E (first letter or ‘beginning’ to enjoy) around or ‘acquiring’ PERT (fresh)
L V (first letters or ‘entrances’ to Locks Via) inside or ‘being banked’ by DEE (river)
URsINE (associated with bears) missing the last letter or ‘close’ to woods
TELL-TALE (revealing) and S (the letter on the left or ‘sinister’ side of scandal)
An anagram (‘engineer’) of GOT LAYOUT
MO (way of working as in modus operandi) in DEN (study)
EG (for example) in or ‘taken on’ by EXETEr (City) missing last letter or ‘briefly’
DELETE (cancel) round or ‘charged by’ P (parking)
ToASTY (hot snack) without or ‘short of’ O (nothing)
Hidden (‘part of’) in cenTRE AT MENTal
EXPATrIATE (person living abroad) missing R (right)
tEXt fILEs – without first and last letters or ‘removing restrictions’ – you have to think of ‘being’ as a noun which confused us for a while.
A sailor is a TAR so something that is like a sailor could be whimsically described as TARRY
IE (that is) inside IFS (conditions) after TEST (trial)
Hidden (‘contributes to’) in millionaiRE’S ULTimate
AtTITUDE (position) with P (power) replacing the first T (time)
An anagram (‘nasty’) of URGES + cOMELY (fair) without first letter or ‘shrouding start’
BISTO (gravy) around or ‘smothering’ R (recipe). We wonder what solvers who are not familiar with the well-known UK brand of gravy granules will make of this clue.
E (English) PLAY (drama) inside or ‘inspired by’ RED (Communist)
D (first letter or ‘start’ of document) in a reversal (‘with revolution’) of TIE (connection)
SLAM (attack) around or ‘inhibiting’ L (left) O (over)
ON (performing) A (adult) inside or ‘parting’ PER SE (essentially)
An anagram (‘sort’) of APHID around or ‘eating’ an anagram (‘bananas’) of THEIR
mEN (staff) TREATY (agreement) without or ‘ignoring’ M (mass)
An anagram (‘off’) of SENT round or ‘without’ RANT (angry shouting)
ERIC (as in Eric Idle) around or ‘guarding’ a reversal (‘lifted’ ) of TIME (sentence)
SUB (sandwich) with PER (a) inside or ‘filling’
EVENS (the numbers divisible by 2) O
TEENS (youngsters) and Y (last letter of qualify)
TO (closed) Y S (first letters or ‘openings’ to Young Students)
That was good fun! Thanks to Serpent and BnJ (good luck with the award!)
We can’t help feeling that there’s something going on in the grid (four answers beginning EX…, only four different letters starting all of the across answers), but we’re waiting for someone to spell it out.
Quite hard, not made easier by EXEGETE, PERSONAE, EREMITIC and the ‘Familiar’ sense of DEMON, none of which are exactly common. Still, no complaints with wordplay providing guidance towards the correct answer. Learnt something new in the ‘absolutely true’ sense of TAUTOLOGY.
No hope in spotting the Nina and look forward to hearing what it is.
Thanks to Serpent and thanks and good luck to B&J.
DavidO – same sense of something I’m missing with the grid and all those X’s running down column 2 but I shall await enlightenment.
11a is delightful, I believe ‘absolutely true’ is the tautology that defines the clue, DEMON and DEPLETE are beautifully done, BISTRO was lol and PERSONAE very nicely assembled. Then a lot of fun as the Downs ran to a close – EREMITIC, ENTRANTS and DIPHTHERIA all have lovely surfaces, SUPERB is, well, superb, EVEN SO is clever and TEENSY made me laugh, having clued something very similar for Rookie Corner recently. I was defeated, parsing-wise, by the very last – not seeing Closed = TO which is evil!
Thanks Serpent and B&J
In some of the across clues the first and last letters spell out names fo rivers. Exe, Trent, Dee, Ure
In fact having a closer look all of the do.
Another super Serpent crossword and I’m delighted to report that I spotted the rivers
Thanks very much to serpent and B&J
Thanks trenodia for the explanation. Very clever!
Yes-thanks trenodia (TrenodiAY?) for the rivers-you have to dig deep to find his signature at times
Great puzzle as always
You may be surprised that my local supermarket in northern Illinois stocks Bisto, even the awful (IMO) curry sauce variety.
Thx to S & B.
I found this really difficult, and had to use Chambers word wizard to complete it. Not helped by first having REDO in 6d, D in RE (connection with) + O (revolution?)
Thanks Bertandjoyce and Serpent.
Lovely stuff.
URINE, DEMON, APTITUDE, PERSONAE are favs.
Didn’t see the rivers.
In keeping with a puzzle featuring Bisto, there were many Aah moments. Hard but very enjoyable. Exegete of the day award to Trenodia. Thanks, all.
Superb cluemanship on all fronts: surfaces, wordplay orchestration and misleading definitions, all wrapped up in a stonkingly clever Nina. Outstanding clues well into double figures from just one puzzle.
Yet another in a long line of masterclasses in crossword setting from the awesome ophidian. Cannot think of another setter, in any organ, who comes remotely close at maintaining this consistency of near-flawless excellence.
Many thanks to Bertandjoyce for the excellent blog, and to everyone (especially Thelonius – you can come again!) for taking the time to comment.