Finishing the puzzle was interesting. My last five answers were 18dn, 27ac, 19dn, 20ac and 15dn, where each answer gave me just enough helpers to see the next one! Thanks to the setter for a very enjoyable puzzle.
Clues are in blue, with definitions underlined. Answers are in BOLD CAPS, then wordplay. (ABC*) means ‘anagram of ABC’. Deletions are in [square brackets].
BTW I will be out of contact for most of the day, so refer to the comments with any issues.
Across
1 Multi-tasking psychiatrist accommodating Italian tenor, not the first one (8)
JUGGLING: JUNG was the psychiatrist, “accommodating” GIGLI the tenor, minus his first “I”.
9 Vegetable course spoken of, followed by whip (4,4)
ROOT CROP: ROOT sounds like route, and then a CROP is a whip.
10 Perhaps miss chasing ball in sports ground (4)
OVAL: O (ball), VAL (a random girl).
11 Rex loudly scrapping with Tim for sweets (5,7)
DOLLY MIXTURE: anagram (“scrapping”) of (REX LOUDLY TIM*). Never heard of it, but I can visualise the dolls’ tea party!
13 Shrinking skin on feet of duck that’s lost weight (6)
EBBING: [w]EBBING.
14 Wine found next to hamper: that brings relief! (3,5)
RED CROSS: RED (wine), CROSS (hamper). Bringing relief in disaster zones, of course.
15 Type that exasperates, somewhat (3,4)
PET HATE: hidden answer (indicated by “somewhat”), and the whole clue as an &lit. definition.
16 Great figures maybe exhaust and defeat one (7)
COLOSSI: CO (carbon monoxide = exhaust gas, maybe), LOSS (defeat), I (one).
20 Tramps round Australia in tears (8)
FLOOZIES: O (round) OZ (Australia), all in FLIES (tears). I had the OOZ early, but was slow to see that “tears” was “speeds”, not “weeps”.
22 Petition backing high speed rail terminal (6)
EUSTON: EUS=SUE (petition, “backing”), TON (high speed).
If there’s one thing that I like
It’s a burn up on my bike
A burn up wiv a bird up on my bike
Now the M1 ain’t much fun
Till you try and do a ton
A burn up on my bike, that’s what I like.
23 Preacher, one carrying around miniature cloth for protection? (5-7)
BIBLE THUMPER: or, differently split, a BIBLET HUMPER. “Biblet” isn’t in the 3 dictionaries I checked, but you get the idea. We call these folks BIBLE BASHERS in my neck of the woods, but again I got the idea.
25 Negative response from Guthrum oddly ignored Henry (2-2)
UH-UH: ignoring the odd letters, GUTHRUM becomes -U-H-U-. Add H for Henry.
26 Symbol of affection nothing granny would show? (4,4)
LOVE KNOT: LOVE (nothing), KNOT (a granny knot, for example). Another I hadn’t heard of, but had no trouble believing.
27 Pole and Greek performing in corner where Victoria is (4,4)
HONG KONG: N (North pole), GK (Greek), ON (performing), all in HOG (corner).
Down
2 Not going to work in blue van I rent (8)
UNVIABLE: anagram (“rent”) of (BLUE VAN I*).
3 First prize catch to get out in the public sphere! (8,4)
GOLDFISH BOWL: GOLD (first prize), FISH (catch), BOWL (get out, at cricket).
4 Husband lifting pants for taking up? (2-6)
IN FLIGHT: anagram (“pants”) of (H LIFTING*).
5 Russian spies you touching cheese (7)
GRUYERE: GRU (Russian spies: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Intelligence_Directorate_(GRU)), YE (you), RE (touching).
6 Party girl to serve porridge (2,4)
DO BIRD: I might resurrect an old practice and leave this one to explain itself!
7 Hamburger off the shelf? (4)
FRAU: cryptic definition. A married German woman would not be on the metaphorical shelf, and would be addressed as FRAU, not FRAÜLEIN. I suspect people will either love or hate this clue. I haven’t altogether decided which camp I’m in!
8 Journalists visiting mostly like holiday entertainment (5-3)
APRES-SKI: PRESS inside (“visiting”) AKI[n].
12 Slips into lorry, stammering in panic (6-6)
TERROR-STRUCK: ERRORS in T-TRUCK (“stuttering”).
15 Simple life of bouncer after promotion (8)
PUFFBALL: BALL (bouncer) after PUFF (promotion). I took “simple life” as in the song, give me the simple life, but of course it’s a fungus.
17 On receiving foreign correspondent, promoting large sort of office (4-4)
OPEN-PLAN: PEN PAL with the ‘L’ “promoted”, inside ON.
18 Hardly the reaction of one in the fast stream (4,4)
SLOW BURN: self-explanatory once you remember a BURN is a stream.
19 Pack in wooden boxes for old cabinet maker (7)
ASQUITH: QUIT (pack in) “boxed” by ASH. Delightful definition! H. H. Asquith was Prime Minister 1908-1916, so his cabinet was made up of Cabinet Ministers, not wood. (No unkind comments about Cabinet Ministers, please!)
21 According to signal from Cockney, Parisian’s one (2,4)
IN TUNE: ‘INT (signal, with the ‘H’ dropped), UNE (French for ‘one’).
24 Drink spoken of in female company? (4)
BEVY: sounds like BEVVY. The setter didn’t really need the “spoken of”, since Chambers gives BEVY and BEVVY as alternative spellings for a drink. I didn’t realise that “bevy” specifically means a group of women, although a “bevy of beauties” obviously is so.
FOI 5dn GRUYERE (cheesy week!)
LOI 25ac UH-UH!
COD 1ac JUGGLING
WOD 20ac FLOOZIES
Mr. Browndog, never heard of DOLLY MIXTURE!! What kind of childhood did you have!? But then neither has my Chambers! And obviously not known across the pond.
26ac LOVE KNOTs are found the world over esp. in 27ac HONG KONG and China.
Edited at 2019-06-08 01:31 am (UTC)
Hard work, but worth every bit of the effort required. My only unknown was GRU at 5dn, as thankfully I knew today’s foreign cheese (although I can’t say that I’d ever eat it through choice).
Yes, Bruce, I’m pretty sure that BIBLET doesn’t exist but it’s made up following the convention that -LET added to the end of a noun can indicate a smaller version of the item in question, and this is absolutley fine in wordplay. I’d tend towards ‘bible-basher’ or ‘tub-thumper’, with the latter used more generally and often with reference to politicians, but BIBLE-THUMPER is in Collins along with ‘-puncher’ and ‘-pounder’.
I wondered whether 19ac was breaking the convention on capital letters in clues as I would have assumed that ‘cabinet’ required a capital C when referring to the conglomeration of ministers who rule over us. The definition in Collins appears to support this view but the entry then goes on to give a host of examples, all spelt in lower case. SOED says ‘usually C-‘ and Chambers has ‘often, the Cabinet’.
Edited at 2019-06-08 05:35 am (UTC)
Edited at 2019-06-08 06:17 am (UTC)
Edited at 2019-06-08 10:22 am (UTC)
Edited at 2019-06-08 03:26 pm (UTC)
There were several clues where I thought I had the answer but not the full parsing: JUGGLING and GRUYERE for example. By the time I got home I think I had the same five left as our setter. LOI was ASQUITH, a delightful moment when I saw it; ditto FLOOZIES.I did a world tour for Victoria but still failed to remember HONG KONG but it had to be.
Many great clues. I thought FRAU was brilliant. David
I did a lot of JUGGLING with this toughie, although the only unknown was GRU, and only the BIBLET HUMPER was left for Bruce to unpick.
I had to think a little before accepting “exhaust = CO”.
I wonder how many succumbed to biffing “slow turn” at 18D – a beautiful trap set for the unwary !
FOI OVAL
LOI PUFFBALL
COD FRAU (loved ASQUITH too !)
TIME 22:04
My notes tell me I took 40 minutes just on the SW corner.
Definite COD to ASQUITH.
Edited at 2019-06-08 07:42 am (UTC)
I’m with Verlaine on 7d: loved it once I got there, and plenty of others along the way were good fun, too. Managed to slow myself down by popping ROOT BEET into 9a for a while, and also not counting carefully enough before I wrote BIBLE BASHER in at 23 before finding a blank square left over at the end. Oops.
Edited at 2019-06-08 08:43 am (UTC)
Fungi are a whole kingdom, like plants or animals, and a highly successful one they are too. and we cannot exist without their aid. We should respect their different nature .. (wanders off, muttering to self ..)
Edited at 2019-06-08 09:03 am (UTC)
‘Cabinet maker’ is an old chestnut. In ST puzzle 4706 Jeff Pearce even used it on its own as a definition.
‘Hamburger off the shelf’, on the other hand, is original as far as I know, and quite brilliant.
Lazy setter’s clichés, such as the almost weekly “O.R.” for “men”, and other such utterly archaic usage known only to avid crossworders is irksome enough for relative newcomers like me.
And I loathe gratuitous, virtue-signalling and phoney sanctimony, so I hope this isn’t taken as such.
But I just feel that this “Bird” thing, in the company of Floozies/Tramps and the whole sexual availability thing of “Frau” (which anyway the setter got wrong) – collectively crosses a line.
We’ve had so many brain-stretching puzzles recently showing how enjoyable fresh-thinking crossword-setting can be like, that surely we can dispense with this tired, hackneyed, rubbish, and move into the 21st century?
(And this isn’t sour grapes, I promise. I finished this puzzle super-quickly, perhaps fuelled by the above ire, and even enjoyed some of the other clues.)
Also, I still love this blog and all the comments, so I hope this doesn’t get me barred. I just couldn’t, in all good conscience, leave it unsaid.
Just a thought 🙂
FGBP
A very enjoyable crossword for all of the reasons mentioned above – was another lover of FRAU and the clever twist to some of the definitions.
Was one of the ‘gullible’ who fell for SLOW TURN until doing my final parsing check off … and not finding it in the dictionary – very good clue when was put back on the straight and narrow. Took that last run-through to find the deviously hidden PET HATE as well.
Although JUGGLING was one of the first answers written into the grid, it was another that had to painstakingly figured out in that run-through, made harder for not knowing Beniamino GIGLI (another clever trick to remove ‘the first one’).
Don’t think that there was a bad clue amongst them – finishing with COLOSSI, that SLOW BURN and TERROR-STRUCK as the last one in.