It’s always a pleasure to solve a crossword by Serpent. As ever, difficult but quite obvious once you see the answer, which is just as it should be.
Definitions in forestgreen, underlined (yes gwep, there are plenty more colours). Anagram indicators in italics.
I think the usual Nina with Serpent is to have something concealed in the unches just inside the outer perimeter, so I looked for that and found nothing. Nor anything else.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | HAPLESS | Unfortunate lapses following treatment introduced by hospital (7) |
| h (lapses)* | ||
| 5 | JANACEK | Boundaries of jazz-rock expanded by an outstanding composer (7) |
| j{azz-roc}k around (an ace) | ||
| 9 | MASOCHISM | Desire to get hurt in this way suppressed by male pride briefly (9) |
| ma(so)chism{o} | ||
| 10 | PACED | Took steps to secure ends of electric cable in apartment (5) |
| pa({electri}c {cabl}e)d | ||
| 11 | SNAFU | United supporters return, causing chaos as usual (5) |
| (U fans)rev. — SNAFU euphemistically stands for ‘situation normal: all fouled up’ | ||
| 12 | COOPERATE | Bill’s partner and childless individual had to pull together (9) |
| coo per{son} ate — bill and coo, had = ate | ||
| 14 | CHASTE | Pure cocaine’s initial rush (6) |
| c{ocaine} haste, or possibly c haste, since c is a standard abbreviation for cocaine and haste can be regarded as initial rush | ||
| 16 | NERITE | Slow-moving creature is camouflaged in tree (6) |
| *(in tree) — well it could have been renite or terine or netire or three others, not to say that it could also have been ‘is’ in some type of tree — I’m not that keen on such a rare word (it’s a type of snail) being clued in this way. But perhaps I should have heard of it? | ||
| 19 | CORONA | Men taken in by trick article in part of The Sun’s coverage (6) |
| c(OR)on a | ||
| 20 | PAELLA | Dish containing rice and capers mainly brought back by the French (6) |
| (leap{s})rev. la | ||
| 23 | HEAT DEATH | Alarming data leads to hypothesis extrapolating the universe’s ultimate fate? (4,5) |
| *(data h{ypothesis} e{xtracting} the) — it’s a term, which I didn’t know, referring to the eventual cooling down of the Universe | ||
| 24 | ELFIN | Self-indulgent nurses like mischievous children (5) |
| Hidden in SELF-INdulgent — not solved until almost the end, which suggests either that it’s quite a good hidden or that I’m a bit dim | ||
| 26 | LOGIC | Principles for laying out GPU’s integrated circuits? (5) |
| First letters — and before people grumble about the apparent mis-spelling in the wordplay, principle is a rare variant of principal. At least I think so. Perhaps Serpent is simply using the ‘origin’ meaning of principle. | ||
| 28 | NAUGHTIER | Nothing that is right may be worse (9) |
| naught ie R | ||
| 29 | TOLSTOY | Writer works hard knocking out one play (7) |
| to{1}ls toy | ||
| 30 | KINSHIP | Popular woman almost gets to sleep around in relationship (7) |
| k(in sh{e})ip | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | HOMESICK | I’m shocked about missing daughter wanting to see family (8) |
| (I’m shocke{d})* | ||
| 2 | PASTA | Fare returning at the earliest opportunity with time to board (5) |
| (ASAP)rev. round t | ||
| 3 | ENCOUNTERED | Experienced soldiers hit back after losing leader (11) |
| {m}en countered | ||
| 4 | SWITCH | Perhaps boy making jokes in school will get cane (6) |
| s(wit)ch | ||
| 5 | JUMBO JET | Plane projection frames inverted position in mind’s eye to begin with (5,3) |
| jut round (job)rev. in (m{ind’s} e{ye}) | ||
| 6 | NAP | Pile of exposed photographs? (3) |
| {s}nap{s} — nap = pile as in the yarns of a fabric | ||
| 7 | COCKATEEL | Creature that’s said to be part dog, part duck (9) |
| “cocker [spaniel], [Eurasian/Common/Eurasian Green-Winged/whatever] teal” | ||
| 8 | KIDNEY | Humour child with rebellious urge (6) |
| kid (yen)rev. — Collins says that kidney = class, type or disposition, and that humour = temperamet or disposition | ||
| 13 | ELIZABETHAN | The essential piece of Isaac Albéniz could be Like a Virgin? (11) |
| (The {Is}a{ac} Albeniz)* — referring to Queen Elizabeth I, ‘the virgin queen’ | ||
| 15 | ARCHANGEL | Reform accepted by both sides under American and Russian settlement (9) |
| A R(change)L — it’s just a city in Russia, but that doesn’t stop it from being a settlement | ||
| 17 | UNGAINLY | Sister merrily lowering her head to be awkward (8) |
| ‘nun gaily’ with the first n later in the letters | ||
| 18 | RAINDROP | What developed air resistance filling muddy pond? (8) |
| *(air), then R in *(pond), &lit. — at least not quite one, since ‘What’ has no place in the wordplay, but certainly &.littish | ||
| 21 | CHALET | Reduced daily rent for holiday home (6) |
| cha{r} let | ||
| 22 | SHRUNK | Withdrawn and bored about hangover on vacation (6) |
| s(h{angover}r)unk — bored = sunk as in bored/sunk a well | ||
| 25 | FAITH | Priest rejecting expression of doubt about core of his religion (5) |
| fath{er} round {h}i{s} | ||
| 27 | CAT | Queen perhaps delaying introduction of legislation (3) |
| act with its a delayed — a queen is the counterpart to a tom [cat] | ||
Thanks, Andrew. Yes, I too was looking for the “usual” Nina. This time, it’s hidden in the centre horizontally and vertically: KREUTZER SONATA. A search shows that this was a novella by TOLSTOY, with the title from a Beethoven work; the novella subsequently inspired a work by JANACEK!
To complete the symmetry, the storyline of the novella could be said to describe a HAPLESS KINSHIP.
Didn’t find this as enjoyable as most Serpent puzzles but a good crossword nonetheless.
I have the same dislike for clues such as 16a and found the wording in the semi &lit 16d a bit clumsy.
I took 26a as a full &lit. I would have objected to a misspelling if it had “principals” – surely “principles” is the correct one.
Held up a little by entering COCKATIEL, didn’t know the EE spelling.
Thanks to Serpent and John.
Sorry, my eyesight failed me. 18d not 16d.
I’d never have found the Nina and I didn’t get 16a mainly because I don’t spell 7d with a double E
Despite that I did enjoy the challenge so thank you to Serpent and John
I did enjoy tussling with this one, but the nina – while clever in a ‘that must have taken some doing’ kind of way – was lost on this solver.
I really don’t see how ‘principles’ works in 26ac, despite Hovis’ support. ‘Principal’ means ‘first’ or ‘main’; ‘principle’ doesn’t (despite John ‘thinking’ that it might be a rare alternative). COCKATEEL is annoyingly ambiguous too, since COCKATIEL (as crypticsue points out) is by far the more common spelling. COCKATEEL is given as an alternative in my dictionaries, but if you are using a homophone of TEAL as your wordplay, then as a solver you are knackered until you get the obscure NERITE.
CORONA and HEAT DEATH were my favourites this morning, for no other reason than they are science-y, and we don’t see enough of that in crosswords.
Thanks to John and Serpent.
KD. The first meaning of “principle” in chambers is “a source, root, origin”, so I think this works for the first letter meaning (though “principal” may indeed work better). However, for the surface reading of “scientific laws”, I can’t see how principals can work. That was my interpretation even if I didn’t word it well @3.
Done by NERITE and the double E spelling of COCKATEEL, the latter at least for getting the Nina. I entered KIDNEY without much idea what was going on either.
Thanks to Serpent and to John.
Fair enough, Hovis, but it doesn’t work for me still (although I understand why it’s there – for the surface). The reaction of the majority of solvers is going to be ‘that’s a misunderstanding of principal/principle’. Cryptic solvers are picky types when it comes to English usage, as we know …
Just seen that I called you Andrew, John. Apologies – think I’d just answered an email from another Andrew…
Should have seen the Nina. Nice. It almost justifies NERITE.
The other day, Pierre, in celebration of the fact that he and Tees so often coincided, had a nice apposite anagram in his blog. Really I ought to do the same thing since Serpent and I so often coincide, but the letters don’t help me. The J is a problem: so few words have J in the middle that you need a word starting with J, and there don’t seem to be all that many suitable ones.
I loved the clue for JANACEK. I’d just about completed the puzzle before I had a search and there it was and i have read it. Thanks Neil W for the final touch.I would say this was an immaculate compilation
many thanks Serpent and John
In the same boat as Hovis and CS. I came to the blog expecting to find a very obscure slow moving creature end in ISI.
Nevertheless, Serpent is a very favourite setter and I enjoyed this one as much as ever.
Thanks all
We liked this, with Janá?ek’s “Kreutzer Sonata” (not to be confused with Beethoven’s “Kreutzer” sonata), plus Isaac Albéniz for good measure. In fact JANÁ?EK was our second one in and when we spotted ..EUTZE. in the middle row unches we guessed what was going on.
We also liked HEAT DEATH, which put us in mind of Flanders and Swann’s First and Second Law:
Heat is work, and work’s a curse,
And all the heat in the universe
Is gonna cool down because it can’t increase
Then there’ll be no more work and there’ll be perfect peace.
— Really?
Yes, that’s entropy, man!
We did have to check the alternative spelling COCKATEEL to get NERITE (a new word to us), and we couldn’t see the parsing of COOPERATE.
Thanks, Serpent and John
Another one defeated by NERITE here. I ended up using a word search to get 7dn, which I didn’t know (although I’d almost get there from the word play), and didn’t know which spelling to enter so I left that letter blank in the hope I’d get 16ac.
Thanks to John and Serpent
Azed used “principle” as a first letter indicator recently and, though not infallible, I think that’s a fairly sound reference. With that in mind perhaps 26ac is a full &lit.
Too late for anyone to notice my comment, but for what it’s worth, I was additionally held up at 7d by entering “COCKABILL,” which fits the wordplay equally well, though the definition was less clear. Apparently, it’s some sort of anchor or position of an anchor hauled up to a ship’s side, but I failed to find a “creature” connotation. When the finally penny dropped about the bird required, I was further held up, like others, by entering COCKATIEL, which was the only spelling I knew.
Whew! And so to bed.
Thanks to setter and blogger.
Kathryn’s dad @9 I have to admit to being a bit perplexed as to why ‘a source, root, origin’ still doesn’t work for you as wordplay for the first letter of a word! Just because principal is more commonly used in crosswords it doesn’t mean that definition of principle is rendered unfair.
This was a toughie for me – definitions like humour for kidney always throw me – but very enjoyable and all perfectly fair.
Thanks Serpent and John
Many thanks to John for the excellent blog and to everyone who has been kind enough to comment.
Apologies for the NERITE/COCKATIEL combo and then using an anagram and a homophone to clue them!
I have no quibble with “principle” as there’s dictionary support got it as Hovis @7 points out. But I agree with Kathryn’s Dad @9 that many solvers will see this as an error. This often happens when a less well known meaning of a word is used as an indicator. As another example, I’ve seen setters accused of using an indirect anagram when using “preposterous” to mean last to first.
I must confess I didn’t notice the potential “misspelling” when solving, but had I done so I would have assumed it was correct in a different context because I trust Serpent as a setter.