Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Ah, carpox, you may have held the clue! Cheers. But why are there those bold lines in 3rd and 8th columns?

Thanks to heisenberg and rrrobbo - food for thought.

I'm really struggling withe the across clues. Can anyone explain why 3 is rental and 22 is spoors? Also 4, 6 and 8 are really hard (for me!). Also I can't see why c is ottoman. Any help much appreciated. I haven't got to the snakes and ladders bit yet.

3 parental without pa

4 heads off definition

As surrounds a word for greenery that sounds drench

6 drinkers use these to fm drink a long drink

8 the generic name for a hi fi

Ottoman:
The forum e-moderator doesn't like one or more of the words in my explanation and won't let me post, the best I can do is this:
OT to (a) man

I have the nine items now - my imperfect sketch of a ladder gave me an invalid short-cut.

22a Spoors = tracks broke=poor... cry for help =S(O)S

Not being critical of Serpent, I enjoyed this. Took me a while to remember how the game is structured, but of course you start from the bottom...I don't send my entries in, so have just highlighted routes in different colours and have 9 (5 up and 4 down). However, slightly more troubling, I have 2 instances of upbound routes crossing each other and one instance of downbound routes crossing each other. I don't remember a S&N board looking like that...

I have the same Meursault.

I enjoyed the puzzle but that aspect of the endgame make it a somewhat messy grid.

Yes, a bit messy, but generally nice construction, middle column well featured. I remember seeing film of some nature hunters who thought they'd found a king cobra. Except from the tail end it didn't seem very lively. Eventually, after a lot of caution, someone took a look at the front end. It was half way through its dinner, which was a rat snake. So, with great indignity the Attenborough types removed the king cobra's dinner, inch by inch, foot by foot and then took the king cobra prisoner. Later, one of the people responsible visited the king cobra. It knew very well who he was - I've never seen a snake extend so much of its body in a vertical position (would surely have got him if it could !)