I quite liked 2d for being the quirkiest clue of the day and also 3d for a fun cryptic device resulting in a nice surface. Having done this on paper I don’t have an exact time, but I know I didn’t have to pause long at any point: a “steady, pleasant solve”. Thanks setter!
ACROSS
1 Arrangements for action aborted, or left out (5,2,6)
ORDER OF BATTLE – (ABORTED OR LEFT*) [“out”]
9 Maybe kilos wife’s shed, showing figure (5)
EIGHT – {w}EIGHT. WEIGHT is “maybe kilos”, shedding W for wife.
10 Moving a line at the end of proposal on the internet? (9)
EMOTIONAL – A L [a | line] at the end of E-MOTION. MOTION is a proposal, and you can jocularly internet anything by putting an E- in front of it.
11 One dealing with gender-fluid performer (10)
TRANSACTOR – TRANS [gender-fluid] + ACTOR [performer]. Is “trans” necessarily “gender-fluid”? You might be trans and very firmly committed to your gender. Probably best not to start arguing about these things on the internet though…
12 Asian bands love ending with encore (4)
OBIS – O [love] ending with BIS [encore]. A familiar word in crosswords, like its friend the ibis, an obi is a Japanese kimono sash.
14 Ruler in east, one out of Shanghai (7)
EMPRESS – E [east] + {i}MPRESS [shanghai, losing I for “one”]
16 Language‘s current rules about welcoming greeting (7)
SWAHILI – I LAWS [current | rules], reversed and then “welcoming” HI [greeting]
17 Old writing, wanting a new start (7)
OPENING – O [old] + PEN{n}ING [writing, wanting “a new” = one of its Ns]
19 Pupil once misleads about spearhead of ground forces (7)
OBLIGES – OB [= old boy, pupil once] + LIES [misleads] about G{round}
20 Losing heart, book holiday period (4)
NOEL – NO{v}EL [book, losing “heart” = its central character]
21 Leader with due respect to me (10)
PACESETTER – PACE SETTER [with due respect to | me]. PACE, from the Latin, is a word that I’ve never quite known how to pronounce. I tend to gravitate to saying it so it sounds quite similar to an r-less “padre” – what about you?
24 Radical message, not the first on film (9)
EXTREMIST – {t}EXT [message, “not the first”] + RE MIST [on | film]
25 Once again, make fast retreat — run off (5)
RETIE – RETI{r}E – a word for retreat, losing one R for “run”.
26 Pan for some food maybe being the wrong size (13)
DISPROPORTION – DIS PRO PORTION [pan | for | some food maybe]
DOWN
1 Say how to buy drug patent with two drugs — the wrong way (4-3-7)
OVER THE COUNTER – OVERT [patent] with H + E [two drugs] + COUNTER [the wrong way]
2 Belief one may be a source of litter? (5)
DOGMA – convert the word laterally into DOG MOTHER and you will have the proud source of a litter of pups.
3 Sozzled, rise twice to spit (10)
ROTISSERIE – (RISE RISE TO*) [“sozzled”]
4 Rob’s put on small garments (7)
FLEECES – FLEECE [rob] is put on S [small]
5 Way of working in thrill, almost erotic (7)
AMOROUS – M.O. [way of working] in AROUS{e} [thrill, “almost”]
6 Grasp tip of throw rug (4)
TWIG – T{hrow} + WIG [rug]. Was hoping this to be something to do with syrup again, but that was probably a one-off.
7 Giving title to book and nine long works (9)
ENNOBLING – (B + NINE LONG*) [“works”]
8 Doctor stops neuralgic spasms (7,7)
PLASTIC SURGEON – (STOPS NEURALGIC*) [“spasms”]
13 Does one hold up one who is late? (4-6)
PALL-BEARER – cryptic definition, “late” meaning “deceased” in this case.
15 Introduced now dominant figure on paper (9)
PRESENTED – PRESENT [now] + ED [dominant figure on paper]
18 Tradesman more likely to avoid work after golf (7)
GLAZIER – LAZIER [more likely to avoid work] after G [golf]
19 Henry leaves Frank a record for dance (3-4)
ONE-STEP – {h}ONEST [H for Henry leaves a word meaning “frank”] + EP [record]. When you see dance in a clue and a 3-4 enumeration, it’s very often ONE or TWO-STEP…
22 Show disapproval over note in noted passage (5)
TUTTI – TUT [show disapproval] over TI [note]
23 Place to eat in Times Square (4)
MESS – hidden in {ti}MES S{quare}
LOI 21 PACESETTER, where I wasn’t sure about the pace bit (I’ve never needed to pronounce it, but if I had to take a stab it probably wouldn’t be a million miles from “parquet”.) COD 2d DOGMA, which made me grin, WOD SWAHILI.
DOG,MA is the sort of thing that made me love crosswords in the first place, so an automatic COD, but I got another chuckle from FLEECES
I’m a bit disappointed. It is Friday, it is the 1st of June. I was expecting Pimms with strawberries and borage and this was more like a half of mild.
Mostly I liked: Dogma.
To cheer myself up I think I’ll do a one-step to Tutti Frutti. And where did I put the Pimms?
Thanks setter and V.
1 ac. I couldn’t find where the “F” in Order of Battle could possibly come from as I was determined that Left =L.
11 ac. I’ve not seen “trans” here before, defined as gender-fluid.
21 ac. I would pronounce pace as almost rhyming with Saatchi. Either brother. Or with starchy.
COD and LOI, PACESETTER.
Am pleased to see that the Times uses ‘kilo’ both as an abbreviation and in its everyday context – pedantic physicists will tell you that it’s a unit of mass.
Thanks verlaine and setter.
Edited at 2018-06-01 09:06 pm (UTC)
I forgot to add, my Latin master would have insisted on PAR SAY. To use CHAY was for Church Latin.
FOI ORDER OF BATTLE, but the anagrind took well over a minute to crack.
I biffed RETIE, and feel that “run out” would have been more accurate than “run off”, which suggested to me that the “r” either began or ended the relevant word. My only gripe with an otherwise excellent puzzle.
Thanks to V also for parsing my other biff OVER-THE-COUNTER, where I had a drug problem.
LOI EXTREMIST where I yet again overlooked “on = re” for some time.
Loved DOGMA but COD EMPRESS
Lovely crossword though, a very enjoyable 24 mins.
As one who often enough sings “dona nobis pacem” in choral society masses, the pronunciation of PACE is difficult to imagine otherwise, though Chambers sanctions 3 possibilities.
My CoD goes to the delightfully macabre PALL BEARER, a cd with pleasingly grim wit. But DOG MA was funny, too.
I remember a time when gender-fluid meant (if anything) neither one thing nor the other. Now I suppose it means neither one thing nor any of the other 53. What enlightened times we are privileged to live in!
* Anagrams For Foreign, Religious Or Never-heard-of Terms Every Day.
Enjoyable 23 mins with a lucky toss-up between OBIS/EBIS, having presumably forgotten (along with much else) any past encounter with the former.
PS Is it just my settings, or do others find that their own comments sometimes do not show in the IPhone LJ app?
I’m feeling in a good mood, so I very much enjoyed 2d. EMPRESS was also nicely constructed at 14a.
Regarding PACE and Latin pronunciation, I was taught everything I know about Latin (which is almost, but not quite, nothing) by the kindly and elderly Mr. Baden – a Mr. Chips tragically misplaced in a 1970’s comprehensive. I believe he favoured the hard C, but then again he applied a home counties accent across the board which, on reflection, seems wrong.
I appreciate that there are few, if any, surviving audio recordings of genuine Romans, but surely the pronunciation can be inferred from things like songs and poems? There must be such a thing as “forensic linguistics”.
Edited at 2018-06-01 11:01 am (UTC)
Veni, vidi, teeny weeny yellow polka-dot bikini.
Edited at 2018-06-01 03:49 pm (UTC)
Edited at 2018-06-01 12:33 pm (UTC)
However, when my A Level Latin teacher left half-way through the course and was replaced by an ancient specimen who insisted that we pronounce as VEE all the V’s that we had hitherto pronounced as W I abandoned all hope and jettisoned Latin after the exam, preferring to continue with French and German at university on the grounds that they at least had some living practitioners to copy.
Enjoyed today’s grid after the travails of the last few days. Grinned like a fool at DOGMA and PALL BEARER.
Time: untimed, but well under the hour.
Thank you to setter and blogger.
Dave.
But I must say, I detested (past tense; getting over it) the clue for FLEECES. If the first word of the clue, “Rob’s,” lost its apostrophe, it would be a concise, straight definition, as “robs” = “fleeces.” Making it appear to be a name and possessive on the surface so you can add S for “small” and have a different definition seems somewhat short of brilliant. (I tried to construct a better clue, but I was too sleepy.)