ACROSS
1. CLODHOPPER – a brilliant word; CHOPPER around LO + D.
6. SCOW – S[choolboys] + COW.
9. STIRRUP – Browning’s ‘How they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix’ is one of the few poems (bits of poems) I ever memorised, though I found I had unaccountably misplaced ‘Joris’ – and Dirck for that matter – from my memory bank. Everyone together now: ‘I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he / I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three’.
10. PIQUANT – in piquet, a pique is when you score 30 points before your opponent scores anything; so PIQU[e] + ANT.
12. AUTOSTRADA – TO inside U + STRAD all inside AA (Automobile Association).
13. TAR – RAT reversed.
15. OUTCRY – OUT (‘unacceptable’) + RY (‘line’) around C (‘clubs’) for ‘public protest’; ‘taken by’ here functions to place RY beside C (as it happens, beyond it rather than before it, but it could work the other way round in other situations).
16. DEFIANCE – if you see ‘intended’, think ‘fiance(e)’; DE (musical notes) + FIANCE.
18. BUNGALOW – UN (’a French’) + GAL (‘girl’) in BOW (London E3).
20. VIRAGO – RA in VIGO; it’s helpful when you know only one (Spanish) Galician port.
23. ROW – almost as easy as the other 3-letter clue, you say. Not for me, it wasn’t.
24. TABERNACLE – BILL + CLEANER anagram*.
26. IMMERSE – M[igrants] in I’M (‘this writer’s’, as in ‘This writer’s happy’ = ‘I’m happy’) + ERSE (‘language’); ‘absorb’ as in ‘absorb/immerse oneself’ in something.
27. PRINTER – while it was sad for Lady Antonia when Harold passed on, it was good news for setters; P[R]INTER.
28. RIND – a couple of abbreviations and a short form combine to give us ‘peel’; R[eform] + IN + D[ied].
29. CONCENTRIC – CONCENT (sounds like ‘consent’) + RIC[h].
DOWN
1. CAST – CATS with the last two letters reversed.
2. OVIDUCT – my nemesis, even though I was straight onto Publius Ovidius Naso. Better known to Joe Public as the Fallopian tube, the oviduct is the tube that links the ovary to the uterus; OVID + UT (‘TU’ [trades union] reversed) with C (‘about’) inserted (indicated by ‘to enter’).
3. HARBOUR-MASTER – ‘port supervisor’; HARBOUR (‘nurse’, not ‘port’!) around STREAM*.
4. PUP+ATE; remember ‘ate’ for ‘worried’.
5. EMPHASES – PHASE in EMS.
7. CHASTEN – a simple and elegant charade of CHASTE and N; my COD.
8. WATER MELON – MEN A TROWEL*.
11. QUALIFICATION – a double definition.
14. BOMBARDIER – DRAB + MO all reversed in BIER (‘final transport’).
17. SOMBRERO – a cryptic definition and a rather nice one. Big felty thing duly doffed to setter!
19. NEWSMAN – S[on] in Cardinal Henry NEWMAN – a Saint in the making?
21. ALL-STAR – L[i]S[t] in ALTAR.
22. TROPIC – [directo]R in TO + PIC.
25. CROC – sounds like ‘crock’.
‘Bombardier’ now refers to members of the Air Force rather than the Army. It was my father’s job as a teenager, when he first secured the bombs in the bomb bay of his B-17, and later pushed the button when over the designated aiming point. Later studies showed that 99% of the bombs missed the target completely.
He flew with the 5th Air Force out of Fogia, so they mostly bombed the oil facilities in Romania, as well as factories and marshalling yards in Austria, Yugoslavia, and Italy.
One more tip. They’re forecasting 41 degrees for tomorrow. They rarely forecast anything above 40, so 41 is code for “upwards of 41”. Enjoy.
I was running through all the East End places I knew to get 18a, but had to fathom 14d before light dawned – a bit unfair I thought. I’d never come across EMPHASES before, so it went in with fingers crossed.
Other than that, no arguments.
(Sound of hand slapping forehead)
Apologies to the unknown Joris, Dirck and the good people of Ghent, but STIRRUP solved from checkers.
Good start to the week. Thanks setter and blogger.
No idea why OUTCRY was so elusive: it just was. Got it eventually, and put in OVIDUCT on a wing and a prayer (convinced I was missing something as I thought about was an anagram indicator rather than the – now familiar – C).
Enjoyable puzzle, and thanks to Ulaca for very nice blog.
How I brought the good news from Aix to Ghent or Vice Versa
W C Sellar & R J Yeatman (from Horse Nonsense)
I sprang to the rollocks and Jorrocks and me,
And I galloped, you galloped, we galloped all three.
Not a word to each other: we kept changing place,
Neck to neck, back to front, ear to ear, face to face:
And we yelled once or twice, when we heard a clock chime,
“Would you kindly oblige us, is that the right time?”
As I galloped, you galloped, he galloped, we galloped, ye galloped, they two shall have galloped: let us trot.
I unsaddled the saddle, unbuckled the bit,
Unshackled the bridle (the thing didn’t fit)
And ungalloped, ungalloped, ungalloped, ungalloped a bit.
Then I cast off my buff coat, let my bowler hat fall,
Took off both my boots and my trousers and all –
Drank off my stirrup-cup, felt a bit tight,
And unbridled the saddle: it still wasn’t right.
Then all I remember is, things reeling round,
As I sat with my head ‘twixt my ears on the ground –
For imagine my shame when they asked what I meant
And I had to confess that I’d been, gone and went
And forgotten the news I was bringing to Ghent,
Though I’d galloped and galloped and galloped and galloped and galloped
And galloped and galloped and galloped. (Had I not would have been galloped?)
ENVOI
So I sprang to a taxi and shouted “To Aix!”
And he blew on his horn and he threw off his brakes.
And all the way back till my money was spent
We rattled and rattled and rattled and rattled and rattled and rattled and rattled –
And eventually sent a telegram.
So we Instagrammed a selfie and just Tweeted it #GhentAwesomeness
Thanks joe for the full Aix/Ghent verse, which I’d only partially remembered.
Lots from definition, and STIRRUP from ‘put his foot in it’. Thanks to Joe for the parody, which for my money is much better than the original.
Upon the hill there stood a do’ecoat
It’s not there now, someone’s took it
In fact at first I thought the parody was the original, so similar in style.
Otherwise emphases not parsed on entering and forgot to go back to it (EMS unknown) but very quick, no holdups. Vigo known from footballers Celta, and as the port of origin of the last vessel I worked on. 14:48
Rob
The stirrup clue would have been better in a TLS puzzle, not my sort of clue at all and barely cryptic.
I suppose I should count myself lucky (given my aforementioned lack of cultural education) that the only playwright known to crossword setters is Pinter.