i Cryptic Crossword 4122 by Serpent
April 23, 2024
Difficulty rating (out of five): ⏳⏳⏳⏳
I’m afraid I can do no better than to steal Allan_C’s quip from the comments over on the other side and note that I’m sure we all noticed something a little fishy going on in the grid today. Feel free to groan. I didn’t know all the thematic items, but there were enough to make me sure, for once, that I was on the right track. Would I have got my LOI, 1ac, otherwise? I’m not sure I would have, this being one of those puzzles where the phrase “reasonably testing” springs to mind, though Serpent always being fair this was solvable with a little patience and attention to detail. Enjoy.
CoD? I’ll go with 6d – “Fine words conquer 25 unexpectedly (14)”.
All the answers and parsing of the clues can be found in Fifteensquared’s blog from June 2020:
https://www.fifteensquared.net/2020/06/16/independent-10507-serpent/
Borodin
batarde
Saboteur
Denzo
flashling
jonofwales
Cornick
sprouthater
uiytjhgmj
willow1235
idothei 
A challenge today which would have been ⏳⏳⏳if I had spotted the nina before reading Jon’s blog! PIKE and PERCH were among the last to go in. The best of many excellent clues were the &lit(?) REPUBLIC, the HEAVENLY BODY which came surprisingly quickly with only two crossers, my FOI PLATOON and ALIGNED with its misleading surface. Having G_A…. for 6d, I looked at 25a, but failed to twig SUSPECT as anagrind, resorted to guesswork and noticed that GRANDILOQUENCE contains all the letters of CONQUER, so solved two at once. This excellent puzzle was somewhat tarnished by clues which were in my view below Serpent’s usual standard, unhelpful rather than unfair. ANTISEPTIC for unemotional may be in a dictionary, but I’ve never known it used thus. PIKE involved converting the CHILDREN to KIDS before bisecting them, and there was another double jump via Latin in VI=SEX. Klingsor had something to say about this type of clue in his excelllent ALBERICH CROSSWORD blog.
No problems, and with quite a few intricacies to appreciate along the way. 1a first in, Nina rumbled early doors, LOI was NECKTIE; favourites were CoD and REDRAWN. The definition for ANTISEPTIC seemed fine to me.
Wasn’t expecting to do any puzzles this week as we’re on holiday with family in Devon, but tackled this one with my Younger Solver daughter. All over in ⏳⏳ time, definitely on the easy side for Serpent I thought. FOI was PIKE, LOI was ANTISEPTIC, with loads to enjoy in between. Liked REDRAWN and also the &lit (?) SCAT. Never even thought to look for a theme…
Thanks Jon, I did. The only question mark I had was for antiseptic. Just off to 225 for some elucidation ( hopefully )as I’ve never come across that meaning before.
Having been to the other side, I have to agree with James about the elision between 23/24. It had me furrowing my brow. Also Bert and Joyce saving me a delve into Chambers, which is a good job as much more delving will result in spinelessness.
….as in DIVER you mean? I thought that’s what Serpent meant.
An example of how easily one forgets an Indy crossword in the time it takes for it to reappear in the i. I have to fess up to being allan_c on 225, but this time round I totally missed the theme. All I can say in my defence is that I was too busy looking for a (non-existent) nina. Super puzzle, though. I particularly liked SCAT for its &lit-ishness.
Me again. And on 225 there was a comment on ‘sex’ = ‘VI’ = ‘six’ without any Roman/Latin indication. Interestingly there’s an ingenious (imho) indication for that in today’s (24 Apr) FT puzzle. To avoid a spoiler I’ll say no more.
Very good. Well that’s typically Monk to be scrupulously fair. He always is.