Across
1 A+R+GO – might have been used by 4dn if Jason was feeling generous.
3 SPEARHEADS – parade+shes*.
9 CONQUER – the fruit of the horse chestnut, also called ‘horse chestnut’, is also called a ‘conker’, especially by little boys who boil them in vinegar, punch holes through them, string & knot them and then swing them like maces in latter-day knightly combat. Does one get an ASBO for doing it nowadays?
11 OARSMEN – I tried in vain to work out the wordplay, as it’s just a cryptic clue, referring to the fact that in some rowing boats chaps (or lasses – or both) sit on either side of the vessel to balance it. Or think Charlton Heston in Ben Hur if you prefer.
12 IM+MODE+STY – ‘the writer’s’ = ‘I’m’ as in ‘I’m/The writer’s coming’.
13 EASE+L – if a supporter’s not a bra, it’s probably an easel.
14 AFTERTHOUGHT – hidden.
18 ATHLETES FOOT – decent cryptic clue.
21 H[O]ARD
22 LEMON SOLE – I’m more familiar with people than things as ‘lemons’ = ‘wretched blighters’.
24 WAIVING – my penultimate; to waive is to give up your right to something and to wave is to flourish something, as in flourish it aloft.
25 omitted – Crosswordland’s favourite artist, non?
26 REL[EG]ATION – I had ‘delegation’ for a while; I’d call it blogger’s nerves if I didn’t do it all the time.
27 PLEA[t]
Down
1 ARCH+[r]IVAL – nice start to the downs.
2 GUNSMITH – sun+might*; ‘up’ in arms as in, well, ‘arch in arms’…
4 PARIS – investment as in siege.
5 AGONY AUNT – anagram of a+young+[m]an, with the ‘m’ of ‘man’ replaced by the ‘t’ of time, + T[ime], with ‘badly’ doing the job of the anagram indicator. on edit – thanks to Penfold
6 HORSE CHESTNUT – one of the official colours of an equine is ‘chestnut’, and very beautiful they are too.
7 ALM[O]S+[concer]T – ‘virtually’ is the literal.
8 SINGLE – the literal is ‘one’, and I’m supposing that the wordplay should be parsed as ‘entering little burn we have lake’, but since I invariably make a horlicks of such clues, I’m not staking anything on it.
10 UNDERSTUDYING – the wordplay is lovely but rather incidental, I feel; UN+DE (the French bit) + RSTU (the 4 letters in order bit) + DYING (keen bit).
15 HALF-LIGHT – HAL[t] + FLIGHT.
16 CO[LOSS]AL
17 ET CETERA – anagram of create + [th]E + [verdic]T; literal is ‘that reduces length of sentence’. on edit – thanks to Nonnie
19 SHOWER – double definition, the first very literal and the second informal, as in a sergeant-major bawling a group out as a useless shower.
20 DANIEL – my last; a semi &lit, I think. Anyway, it’s an anagram of a den i l[eft].
23 MA[MB]O – a Latin American dance similar to the rumba; they wanted to call it a ‘mamba’ but that space had already been taken by the herpetologists.
Edited at 2013-03-25 01:38 am (UTC)
Isn’t SHOWER a Terry-Thomas-ism? Or am I thinking of some other chap?
This has all come up here before as recently as last year at 11ac in this puzzle http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/812560.html , and again in comments under puzzle 25126.
Edited at 2013-03-25 07:08 am (UTC)
A couple here (8dn and 23dn) where the containment indicator seems to indicate the opposite of what’s required.
Why not “staggeringly, I left a den”?
In 23 the wordplay suggests something meaning “doctor” inside something meaning “dance”.
MAO (Chinese leader) introducing (containment indicator) MB (doctor). Definition: to dance (MAMBO vb)
Edited at 2013-03-25 11:39 am (UTC)
15 minutes for a slightly mechanical solve with nothing really standing out as either difficult or cleverly clued.
I agree with Keriothe on the DANIEL clue: the word order seems unnecessarily bizarre. But then I’ve recently been reading Edgar Allan Poe’s Barsoom novels, where almost any word order will do.
Does AFTERTHOUGHT qualify for the longest “hidden” (if only barely) in crossword history?
UNDERSTUDY put me in mind of the legendary (it’s in Ripley) story of Hue (the artist Charles-Désiré Hue perhaps) who, when arrested in Pecu sent a simple message back to France: O-P-Q-R-S-T. This was correctly translated as “Au Pecu, arresteé!” (“Arrested in Pecu!”). I’d like it to be true.
Also, in the explanation for 5d, the T comes after the anagram rather than replacing the M in the fodder which is just dropped.
28 minutes, enough for 7 boiled eggs.
Chris G.
TonyW
Edited at 2013-03-26 02:18 am (UTC)
I thought 20 a fine clue until Keriothe pointed out how it could have been so much better.
For the record, ‘introducing’ is on the list of containment indicators in the recent editions of Chambers.
Exactly the same comment applies to 8dn in my view.
Nice to see my name in print (20dn)!!
Leaving them to harden in a dark drawer then stringing them with a rawhide does the trick.
“Conquer/conker” sometimes reminds me of the punch line Frank Muir
used in one of his stories on the program My Word…..She Conks to Stupor.