No hidden messages of any kind, as far as this eye can see, and not much GK needed either, with the possible exception of 9ac. Even there, the cryptic is almost entirely helpful, barring that little ambiguity at the end. Here are my scratchings.
Across
1 GOT UP Rose
Or made to look good, as in got up in a fancy waistcoat. An easy double definition to start the ball rolling
4 HECTORING (may be) threatening
The man: HE. About: C. to: TO. Call; RING. Assemble. Sit back and admire.
9 ANNELIDAN ‘Wormy’
“A class comprising the red-blooded worms, having a long body composed of numerous rings”. Of or pertaining to. The tricky word in the clue is “fellow”, which can give DON, DAN or DEN, I initially chose the first, as being a university fellow, but settled for the second before submitting. ANN is the female, ELI the setter’s favourite priest, probably the one in 1 Samuel 3, and they precede your choice of D?Ns
10 DUPER Trickster
The political party is the DUP, founded by the late Ian Paisley, so be careful what you say about it. It’s the fourth largest party in the House of Commons. ER is ‘Er in Windsor. Don’t they make a lovely couple?
11 DESERT Wilderness
Dessert, what we plebs call pud’n loses one of its S(ons). A little bit of Yoda speak this clue is.
12 DISABUSE Enlighten
A bishop gives you AB, wrap it in DISUSE for lack of employment
14 MORAY FIRTH Scottish water
The good reverend would mangle this as “for ay mirth”, hence forever laughing. Cue linguistic discussion, for Scots would pronounce the original as Murray (rhyme, more or less, with hurry), and not like the eel of the same spelling. But then Spooner was an Oxford don, so probably cared little for the idiosyncrasies of mere locals and said it his own, setter friendly way.
16 TEAR Sign of sorrow
Ignore the capital letters, and RIP is also tear. Ignore the pronunciation.
19 NAPE (touching) this
NAP is sleep, after a fashion, one end of eiderdown is E, If you sleep face down, and are lucky enough to have a partner who doesn’t hog the bedclothes, an eiderdown might just touch the nape of your neck.
20 DEPRECATES Criticises
Cuts gives you the word “depreciates” from which you must remove the 1/I. I’m more familiar with the “fall in value” meaning beloved of car dealers, but I guess it’s a close enough cousin.
22 PROMOTER Advocate (noun)
Pro motor. Tee hee.
23 CUDGEL club
A rather nasty image of a clue. Cud is the semi-digested stuff ruminants shift between stomachs via the mouth, and a Sloaney girl is a GEL.
26 EMAIL message
I is collected by a reversed LAME for “without excitement” Jones minor, give and example of “I is” as correct grammar. Well done.
27 PLATITUDE (that) says nothing new
We’ve waited a long time for a straight anagram, and here it is, of “Detail put”.
28 SHELTERED Protected
Inset L(ieutenan)T ERE (before) into SHED, the mythic gentleman’s retreat from her that hogs the duvet and a “building away from house” if he’s got any sense.
29 TRYST meeting with another person
Or (apparently) a cattle fair. Aim is TRY, street ST.
Down
1 GUARDSMAN One…
A neat &lit, that is an anagram of DRAMAS and GUN
2 TINGS Sharp sounds
Another bit of Yodaspeak. Write in THINGS, but ignore the H(ard). Tings, for me, are what Althea and Donna wore with their pants.
3 PALFREYS horses
Perhaps a lesser known horse, but palominos doesn’t fit. PALS around Norse goddess FREYA without her A(ce)
4 HIDE keep quiet about
The content of outlandisH IDEa’s
5 CONSISTORY Court
Of the ecclesiastical variety. A prisoner, here a CON, haS ‘ISTORY or background in the East End (of London, natch)
6 OLD MAN Master
Arab location supplies OMAN. insert L(or)D
7 IMPRUDENT ‘Making the wrong choices’
For the second time, the setter generously puts the definition in inverted commas. A naughty kid is an IMP, and RUDE is the next naughty. NT is clued by books. There are much ruder bits in the OT, as any imp know.
8 GORGE Ravine
…or pig. No idea why this one took me so long.
13 TIMEKEEPER a punctual one
ServanT IM Employing is an example of something that keeps time. How clever is that?
15 REPROBATE rogue
Agent is REP, sack is ROB (in a Viking sort of way) and had is ATE. Any agent who phones me at stupid times asking impertinent questions about my status and lifestyle is already a reprobate in my book. Barely needs the rest of the clue.
17 RESILIENT Tough
The anagram of LISTENER is indicated by “puzzles”, and it needs an extra 1/I for completion.
18 ACQUAINT Get to come to know
Prize winner of “clumsy definition of the day”. A C(onservative) is followed by QUAINT, pleasingly (if you like that sort of thing) old-world. At least the setter didn’t chuck in the egregious E.
21 TOILET Room….I must occupy
A bit &littish, this. TO LET is “available from landlord”, crying out for the inserted I. Tell me you’ve never been tempted.
22 PRESS Crowd
(Made up of) people who gather outside royal hospitals for expected news when they could just as easily watch it at home.
24 GAUDY party
You may have forgotten that gay once just meant cheery, just as straight just meant not crooked. The first letters of University Dean are inserted for a rather old fashioned party. Quaint.
25 CARD heart
Briefly wondered whether we were wandering into cardiac territory, but the ? indicates this is a definition by example. It’s also half a CARDinal.
Back in the day, about 1968 or so, I had to learn all the phyla, one of which was annelida. Hard to believe I still remember it, but I do.
Which leads us very nicely to the Not the Nine O’Clock News football hooligan sketch…
Also put OLD NAG instead of OLD MAN (and thought at the time that Arab and Old Nag, while both clue horses, don’t seem quite equivalent). Meant to go back since I wasn’t sure about it but then forgot to and never did.
Around an hour I think although I started in a cafe and finished at home so the time keeping is not very useful on the club timer since I just shut my computer and walked home leaving the clock running.
The hidden message is a reference to EMIL MOANE, one of the most boring members of the NEO ARM of the French Gémissement School. His most famous work is the semi-autobiograhical novel Le Grand Moane.
In my defence the song was adapted for a frequently-played ad for El Caballo Blanca, a dancing horse show outside of Perth. Not much of a defence, I admit.
Thanks setter and blogger.
The unknowns along the way were CONSISTORY and ANNELIDAN and I failed to spot the hidden element at 13dn.
Ref 11ac, if I remember U and non-U correctly it’s the plebs that say “dessert” and the toffs that say “pudding”.
Edited at 2015-02-05 09:25 am (UTC)
I think 9A is unfair. “Fellow” and DON are synonyms so the cryptic is very ambiguous on a word many will never have come across before.
Likewise 14A where z8 is spot on regarding the Scots pronunciation. At 20A I don’t equate “depreciate” with “cut” – it means reduce or fall in value. And so on.
Finished in 20 minutes but left feeling irritated
I’ll admit I didn’t parse REPROBATE. Too clever for me.
Not sure about ‘cut’ for ‘depreciate’.
Thanks for explaining TIMEKEEPER, which I failed to parse.
Clearly I know nothing. Mine was on the Avon.
Do I detect the hand of John Henderson at work?
I needed the (fortunately unambiguous) wordplay to get consistory and gaudy and didn’t see how timekeeper worked.
I’m not convinced that “that comes with” is anything other than padding in 16.
I liked MORAY FIRTH, but accept that the Spooner/homophone device is very much a matter of taste. I’m prepared to allow the setter more leeway on pronunciation than some others.
On the other hand, I share the irritation with DEPRECIATES = “cuts”. As a transitive verb, which is required here, “to depreciate” means either “to disparage”or “to lower or reduce the value” of something. The Chancellor in his budget might be reported as having “cut the price of petrol” nut not, I think, as having “depreciated the price of petrol”.
Edited at 2015-02-05 06:56 pm (UTC)
I think this could be the setter (one of the setters?) who I feel is inclined to stray just a little too far from the straight and narrow: “threatening” (even qualified by “may be”) for HECTORING, “cuts” for DEPRECIATES, and “puzzles” as an anagrind all sit a little uncomfortably.
On the other hand I’ve no complaints about ANNELIDAN. Like others I bunged in ANNELIDON based on the wordplay, but it didn’t look right so I quickly changed it to ANNELIDAN, which did. I’m not sure that I consciously thought about the noun v. adjective argument, but it certainly seems a valid one for those unfamiliar with the word.
As it stood, I assumed the setter was trying to use it as an intransitive verb, as if it could mean something like “ravels”, but I don’t really think it can. Hence my feeling that s/he was sacrificing the wordplay in an attempt to produce a good surface reading.
Does that make sense? Or am I missing your point?
Edited at 2015-02-06 08:14 am (UTC)
Although English is a SVO (Subject Verb Object) language, the possibility exists, especially in non-congruent uses of the language, eg poetry and crosswords (and films – think Yoda in Star Wars), for the expert language user/setter to have a little fun and muck the order about.
Of course, “Son abandoning sweet wilderness” would work, but the surface wouldn’t be so convincing, given that the world contains the odd sweet son but, typically, no sweet wildernesses!
Edited at 2015-02-06 01:56 pm (UTC)