Across
1 EVEN SO – ‘nevertheless’; EVEN (level) + SO (therefore).
4 FRACTION – ‘a little bit’; R in FACTION.
10 HERB PARIS – ‘a woodland plant’ (also known as True Lover’s Knot); HER + B + IS around PAR (‘norm’). Sounds better to me the other way round…
11 UNTIE – ‘free’; [A]UNTIE. The BBC is affectionately known as either Auntie or the Beeb.
12 STRIP SEARCH – ‘examination’; TRIPS + EAR in SCH[ool].
14 NIL – ‘a duck’ (no runs in cricket); LIN[e] reversed.
15 APPAREL – ‘what’s worn’; RE (Royal Engineers, nickname sappers) in APPAL.
17 EROTIC – ‘sexy’; thing (IT) is breaking heart (CORE), but backwards. My last in.
19 UNFAIR – ‘not just’; [f[UNFAIR. You see amusement park and not just in the same clue and you bung in UNFAIR.
21 AGAINST – ‘opposed to’; GAINS in A + T[ax].
23 A+CT – ‘ordinance’; I think this one escaped from the Quickie. [Eagle-eyed cozzielex has noticed that there is a misprint in the Crossword Club online version, at any rate, which has ‘ordnance’.]
24 DEUTERONOMY – ‘book’ (literally ‘second law’, the fifth book of the Bible and concluding part of the Pentateuch); TUDOR YEOMEN* (anagram).
26 AIOLI – ‘dressing’; hidden in alternate letters of cAlIcO pLaIn.
27 IN THE MOOD – ‘a big band tune’; THE IN DOMINO*. A tune synonymous with Glenn Miller and his band.
29 SERGEANT – ‘officer’; GEAR* in SENT.
30 HAVE ON – double definition. I don’t get to work with many ’30s’.
Down
1 EPHESIAN – ‘Ancient Greek’; SHEEP IN A*. Ephesus was a city in Ionia (modern Turkey) best known for receiving a letter from a man steeped in Deuteronomy and the rest of the Tanakh.
2 ERROR – ‘mistake’; [t]ERROR.
3 SOP – ‘concession’; SO (think do-re-mi) + P.
5 RESERVE – ‘keep back’; [p]RESERVE.
6 COUCH POTATO – ‘lounger’; COUCH (frame as in the advice was framed/couched in these terms…) + POT + AT + O[dyssey].
7 INTENTION – ‘purpose’; IN TENT (under canvas) + I + ON.
8 NEEDLE – pointer’; [k]NEE + LED*.
9 IRWELL – ‘river’; IR + WELL. I confused this with the Orwell (which flows through Ipswich and is so beauteous that Eric Blair chose his pen-name after the river). The Irwell is a river you cross at 80mph on the M6, flowing from the marvellously named Bacup into the Mersey near Irlam.
13 PARK AND RIDE – ‘transportation scheme’; PRIDE (satisfaction as in ‘He took great pride in his blogs’) around ARK + AND.
16 PINOT NOIR – ‘wine’; INN IT POOR*.
18 STAYED ON – ‘remained’; STAYED (sounds like staid = sober) + ON (performing). Nice lift-and-separate (sober from remained) clue.
20 REUNION – double definition (Réunion is technically an overseas department (English spelling) of France – near Mauritius in the Indian Ocean).
21 ALECTO – ‘fury’; ALEC + TO[y]. Alecto and her sisters Tisiphone and Megaera were not the sort of people you wanted a visit from, as Orestes found out.
22 CALAIS – ‘French port’; C[aught] + (I in ALAS) for the Royal heart-breaker turned ferry terminal.
25 O+ZONE – ‘gas’.
26 E+RA – ‘age’.
LOI: CALAIS. A very good clue.
(As you are probably aware Ulaca, HK, because of it’s colonial past, does not have ‘ACTS’ in it’s legal system and refers to Ordinances instead)
Re Acts/Ordinances, does this reflect practice in England in the mid-19th century? I hadn’t given that any thought either!
Only Parliament, with the assent of the Queen can make an Act (i.e. Act of Parliament). Colonial legislative bodies can make laws, but only as Ordinances. In practice it makes not a jot of difference.
Was misled into thinking this was going to be a very easy puzzle (by clues such as ERA and ERROR), but came unstuck a couple of times: HERB PARKS (bk for book? does this ever happen?), and I mistyped pinto noir, giving amo (alternative for ammo???) without worrying too much about the court bit.
More haste, less speed…
Not difficult, though it felt like it occasionally. I just couldn’t get STRIP SEARCH until last, and I didn’t parse EROTIC (thanks Ulaca). I’m sure noone would expect me to know HERB PARIS (and his Tivoli Brass?) and I am grateful to Ulaca (again) for placing the IRWELL on a map.
3 Bible books today, if two of them in the singular, must be some kind of record. Cozzilex is surely right about ord(i)nance – well spotted, but it got past me in the sense that I saw it as spelt and decided that was the right version after all.
CoD to PINOT NOIR for slander. Poor wine, indeed.
Last in COUCH POTATO.
COD .. STRIP SEARCH — beautifully put together
Still there are some lovely clues, such as 4ac, 22dn, tres elegant
I’ve got to mention 24a which was a lovely anagram – the setter must have been delighted when that one fell out.
Agree that the anagram of EPHESIAN was nicely hidden. Didn’t know the HERB PARIS, but it fell out of the wordplay (and checkers). There were some very nice clues, but the majority made no attempt at clever surfaces, making the whole a rather unsatisfactory exercise.
Stuck on ACT, as the print version has “ordnance”, so held up wondering whether ACT was something to do with ack-ack, until I plumped for the misprint reasoning – not good to have a misprint so soon after the fiasco of a few weeks ago.
13d is very topical here as Nairobi now has a Park and Ride, a train not a bus.
Regards to all
Nairobi Wallah
Once had an interesting ‘discussion’ with Son No2’s geography teacher who had marked him down for not spelling Ordnance Survey Map ‘Ordinance Survey Map’!
I don’t know what the correct acronym for my excuse is but it involves a late night with 40+ “youths” in the conservatory and garden, getting them all on the last bus into Leeds to go clubbing, daughter number 1 eventually coming home at 4:30 this morning and now the anticipation of when she’ll be well enough to get out of bed to open her 18th birthday presents.
I’d have though a man with your comedic background would be familiar with Marriott Edgar’s Three Ha’Pence a Foot. That would have given you Irwell.
I wasted a couple of minutes on 1dn. With the initial E in place, I assumed the compound was going to be ESTER (as it so often is) and tried fitting all those 3-letter sheep into it; and then when I had the H and A in place as well, making that particular combination less likely, I still persisted in looking for other 5-letter compounds. Finally light dawned making the answer my LOI. (Doh!)