Quick Cryptic no 3148 by Tango

HOST (presenter) + ILE (middle letters of Miles, with the deletion of the first and last letters given by “edges away”).

Host is one of those strange words with two meanings that end up almost exact opposites, as it can mean either a person who receives guests, or an army, usually an enemy army.  The ultimate root for both is the Latin word hostis, which meant “stranger”;  the genial innkeeper or party-giver is the entertainer of (friendly) strangers, and via a variant of the word, hospes, we get words like hospital, hostel, hospice, hospitable, while the horde of less friendly strangers, the enemy host, gives us words like hostage and today’s answer, hostile.

Sounds like (“audibly expressed”) SIGHED (disappointment).

Every other letter (given by “periodically”) of grouse.

H (hotel) + INN (bar) + EST (standard abbreviation for established), all following (ie “on”) T (seafronT “at last”, ie last letter of).

sCARVEs, with the deletion of the first and last letters given by “shorter at both ends”.

MARTIN (swallow) + I (one).

A martin is a type of swallow, belonging to the bird family Hirundinidae. There are about 30 different members of the Martin family, though the count is complicated by the same bird being given different names in different parts of the English speaking world – and one at least, which in Europe and Asia has the name sand martin, is not called a martin at all in the US, as Americans refer to it as a bank swallow.

PARTNER (significant other), with the last letter deleted (given by “briefly”) and then the whole reversed (“coming back”).

S~T (“extremely”, ie first and last letters of, ShorT) containing TREE (large plant).

This was simple enough to work out once I had the checkers and realised that the definition was at the end of the clue (“road”) not the start (“large plant”).  But from there to the parsing held me up for quite a while, as to call a tree a large plant is not the most obvious definition that comes to mind.

ST (saint) + RANG (called) + E (GeorgE “ultimately”, ie last letter of).

IN (home) + DIA (aid, or charity, reversed, given by “returned”).

PAST (a tense, as in past, present, future) + AMI (friend “in France”, ie in French), containing R (first bit of Red).  A nice lift-and-separate, as we are not considering red meat here – although pastrami is as it happens red meat.

LIFE (existence) with the F deleted (given by “without fine”).

Like any single letter, F can stand for a whole host of words, from Fahrenheit to Fluorine, Forte (loud) to Fail (in exam gradings).  One area where F stands for Fine is in numismatics, or coin-collecting, where it is one of the grades used to describe the condition of a coin – the grades run from Poor and Fair via Good, Very Good, Fine, Very Fine, Extremely Fine, Uncirculated and Brilliant Uncirculated to the final accolade of FDC, Fleur de coin.

Ironically, a coin described as “fine” is actually not in the best condition; the industry’s definition is “most major and minor detail visible, some lustre remains” – which sounds to me relatively worn.  But then descriptions are put on coins by the person trying to sell them, so a bit of salesman’s hype is no doubt to be expected.

CO (company) + A (beginning to, ie first letter of, Adopt) + X (social network formerly known as Twitter).

ENG (English) + RAVE (party).  A change for English to signify ENG; usually it just gives us E.

(has cheered)*, the anagram indicator being “drunk”.

The phrase Hard Cheese seems to come from farmers making cheese for themselves from skimmed milk because they had sold the cream/butter to their wealthier customers.  Cheese made with skimmed milk was of poorer taste and much harder – therefore, hard cheese came generically to mean something unpleasant, and anyone faced with it was clearly unlucky.  The phrase was first seen in British English in the early 19^th century and is now somewhat old-fashioned, even in the UK; if used at all, it is invariably in the rather less than entirely sympathetic phrase “hard cheese, old boy!”.

S~EER (visionary) with T (Turkey’s “capital” or first letter) inserted into it (given by “around”).

A DD, the second part a play on Crosswordland’s standard usage of Main for Sea.  Although most of us when we are at sea would hope to avoid being actually in the main.

(in game)*, the anagram indicator being “complicated”.

SO (very) + N (northern).

A reverse hidden, in thesE TIPS EDitor, the hidden indicator being “to some extent” and the reversal given by “upset”.

(envies mate)*, the anagram indicator being “doctor”.

(gin I later)*, the anagram indicator being “trashed”.

TORN (rent) + ADO (trouble).

R (king) + EG (for example) + ALE (beer).

DEL (the delete key on a computer) + TA (“inside”, ie middle letters, of sTAr).

TAXI (cab), with the I deleted, given by “I’ll avoid”.

Well, it is quite clear what Mango wants here, but “I’ll avoid cab” is perhaps not the most straightforward way of indicating “cab without I”.  But then given the very limited space setters have for each clue, it’s remarkable how smooth most surfaces are.