42 minutes, eight or nine of which were on 25 ac at the end. I found the bottom easier than the top, where I gave myself problems in the NE by chucking in ‘fall’ at 9ac and being unable until the initial checker fell to see past ‘harmonica’ at 5dn. A typical, but not unenjoyable, Monday offering, with a fair few entered from literals and checkers, and anagrams aplenty.
Across
1 S[CH]OONER – I’d sooner get an accessible one at 1 across than a stinker.
5 BEHAVE – BE+H[ancock}+AVE; not ‘hi’ this time.
8 IRRATIONAL – RATION in rail*.
9 SINK – two definitions, one rather more metaphorical than the other.
10 THE NETHERLANDS – for those of you who didn’t bother with the wordplay, it’s THE ETHER (‘supposed broadcastng medium once’) around N (describing = drawing a circle round = surrounding) + LANDS (lights as variant of alights).
11 ENTHRAL – N[ew] + halter*.
13 PITAPAT – not well camouflaged but not well known either so may hold up some.
15 ST[R]INGY; not really a triple definition because the first three words all make up a single definition.
18 PAT[I]ENT
21 ACHILLES TENDON – ‘fibrous chord’, the enumeration and the checking letters will suffice for most but for the record it’s ACHES around ILL then TEND ON. Mmmm, moving quickly on.
22 omitted – if baffled, try using your leetle grey ones.
23 RAWALPINDI – RAW+ALP+INDI[e]; the inverted commas and capital letters will put off solvers like me for a while, but the gnarled and grizzled veterans will write the answer straight in.
24 omitted – probably not a genuine candidate for omission but I couldn’t resist the chance to say ‘I’m afraid you’re on your own here’.
25 WELSHMAN – Die = Dai, Dai bach, No Good Boyo, geddit? My nemesis – and I sing with the buggers every Tuesday!
Down
1 SKITTLE – S[ecuring]+KIT+let*; my second last in – I was trying to find something meaning ‘[that’s] let out’. Nice clue.
2 HAR[VEST]ER
3 OUT+WEAR – when they play at home, Sunderland want their match against Newcastle to be called the Wear-Tyne derby, but rhythm as much as tradition will foil their attempts, I fear.
4 EPOCHAL – O+chapel*.
5 BALALAIKA – A+LAB[our] reversed + LAIK (sounds like ‘like’) + A.
6 HOSANNA – HOS[t]+ANNA; the host refers to the consecrated bread (or bread substitute) at Communion.
7 VANESSA – VAN’S+SA around E; apostrophes were long since banished from crosswordland answer-wise.
12 ANGULARLY – AN+GUL[A+R(iver)]LY; nifty use of parentheses, what?
14 PSEUDONYM – dumpynose*
16 TEA-LEAF – [originally a non-deliberate omission] Cockney rhyming slang for thief; pretty ordinary clue, me old china.
17 omitted – if you get panicky, just take a deep breath.
18 PASSAGE – double definition; is ‘literary’ necessary. Is the setter referring to its literal meaning of ‘relating to the letters of the alphabet’, which by extension might mean just ‘written’? The second definition, from dressage, refers to a horse pretending to dance and is pronounced appropriately enough in an affected Frenchified manner.
19 THES[P]IS
20 TENSION – Tennyson with NY struck out and I (electric current) added.
Edited at 2012-11-05 02:14 am (UTC)
And to note: the spam filter seems to be working. Just saw the new “Read one suspicious comment”; which I did and deleted it.
For those interested in Friday’s LESSON/SEASON controversy, there is a correction in today’s newspaper stating that the answer was SEASON.
Edited at 2012-11-05 08:59 am (UTC)
Edited at 2012-11-06 02:39 am (UTC)
My wife says skedule, but then so do most English people in my experience. Shedule may be on the way out.
Edited at 2012-11-05 11:48 am (UTC)
13:15 .. All went in fairly swiftly apart from that pesky Welshman.
I may have been living in north America too long – I started typing ENTHRAL at 11a then deleted it, confused about the spelling. I’m not even sure what the ‘correct’ spelling here in Canada is. We have an older Canadian dictionary on the shelf which gives ‘enthral’, but online sources seem to indicate ‘enthrall’ now. Any Canucks want to shed light?
http://www.luther.ca/~dave7cnv/cdnspelling/cdnspelling.html
Claims to use Canadian Hansard, etc. It has “enthrall”.
I’m glad to see I wasn’t alone in putting in an initial wrong answer for 9 but whereas Ulaca plumped for FALL I was tempted by the no less likely DIVE.
LOI was 10 which I couldn’t see for yonks.