I dedicate this to Dorsetjimbo, AKA Jim Biggin, who I will always think of as The Father of the Blog, even if he pretended to be a bit of a curmudgeon.
ACROSS
1 Protean spirit of record spinner in Islington area (6)
DJINNI – DJ IN NI (‘North One’ in London)
5 German bar inspiring Verdi’s first operatic song (8)
BAVARIAN – V ARIA in BAN
9 Hatching a plot? Fascinating! (10)
INTRIGUING – double definition
10 Take courses at home in centre of Philadelphia (4)
DINE – IN in DE (central letters of philaDElphia)
11 Hesitating to own item of jewellery (8)
HAVERING – HAVE RING
12 Ready in Brazil to accept new tenant’s first payment (6)
RENTAL – N T[enant] in REAL
13 Young woman launching a festival (4)
GALA – GAL A
15 Obsessive knight, socially acceptable, wearing blue? (8)
NEUROTIC – N U in EROTIC
18 Light vehicle going around head of rare crustacean (4,4)
LAND CRAB – LAND (light, as in come down to earth) R[are] in CAB
19 Legendary vessel’s slow movement leaving lake (4)
ARGO – [l]ARGO
21 Universal wit entertaining third of listeners (6)
COSMIC – liSteners in COMIC
23 Most junior guy on set, surprisingly (8)
YOUNGEST – anagram* of GUY ON SET
25 Porter, say, primarily consuming Guinness? (4)
ALEC – ALE (porter, say) C[onsuming]; I was fixated on The Forsyte Saga actor, Eric Porter, and chucked in ERIC
26 Factory transformed into a cultivated area (10)
PLANTATION – PLANT + INTO A*
27 Right over the top, learner breaking the fuel regulator! (8)
THROTTLE – R OTT L in THE
28 Mum meeting Granny? Any time will do (6)
MANANA – MA NANA; nice definition
DOWN
2 Cabal originally taking over area after thirty days (5)
JUNTA – JUN (thirty days) T[aking] A (area); I suppose ‘Jun’ can be thirty days, inasmuch as it’s the abbreviation for the month, but it seemed a bit odd to me. Less so, now that I explain it. I think I have convinced myself.
3 Directions devised, we hear, after athletic activity upset Nanny (9)
NURSEMAID – RUN reversed (athletic activity upset) SE (directions) MAID (sounds like ‘made’, AKA devised)
4 Girl employed in teaching riding (6)
INGRID – hidden(-ish) in teachING RIDing
5 Doctor dealing with Banbury’s charity event, possibly (5-3-3,4)
BRING-AND-BUY SALE – DEALING BANBURYS*
6 Lively operatic prince feeding you in Paris (8)
VIGOROUS – IGOR (the eponymous fellow in Borodin’s opera Prince Igor) in VOUS
7 Stick in the name of a sculptor (5)
RODIN – ROD IN; he must have done something beside ‘The Thinker’, but he’s a bit of a Randy van Warmer of the sculpting world, to be honest
8 Girl going to West London district for toughening (9)
ANNEALING – ANN EALING
14 Religious leader’s Indian maid skirting coral reef (9)
AYATOLLAH – ATOLL in AYAH
16 Primate telephoned by old sick aunt (5-4)
ORANG-UTAN – O (old) RANG (telephoned) AUNT*
17 Nutter’s constant stand on marijuana (8)
CRACKPOT – C (constant) RACK (stand, as in something you get from IKEA, which could be either) POT
20 Copper’s cat’s habitual practice (6)
CUSTOM – CUS TOM
22 Virile army doctor ringing a key hospital (5)
MACHO – A C (musical key) H in MO (medical officer)
24 Faint, without disturbing younger family member (5)
SWOON – W/O (without) in SON
Thanks, U, for the timely blog. Sorry to hear that you had to repeat your work. I’m already imagining the erudite flights of fancy and subtle, insightful iconoclasms lost forever into the ethereal void.
I also was working on “amah” as an Indian maid for too long.
FOI: JUNTA LOI and COD: ALEC.
For 5d I saw the anagrist as DEALING W BANBURY, which led to an unlikely ‘bring-and-buy wale’ until the doh moment.
16’33”
Finished in 25 minutes.
Hasta MANANA.
I had some of these answers ready to write in before I’d finished reading the clues properly, so if I wasn’t in habit of always at least trying to parse before entering an answer I’m sure I would have achieved a sub-15 minutes solve which would have been a very rare experience for me, if not actually a first.
It was helpful that I’ve seen ANNEALING or possibly ANNEAL elsewhere within the past two weeks and I had looked it up then.
Although I originally come from what’s loosely termed ‘North London’ these days, Islington was known to me only through the name of property on the Monopoly board and I first became aware of its postal district in recent years when the area and its postcode became associated with a particular view of the current UK political scene which has received a lot of often derogatory press coverage.
Edited at 2021-03-01 01:48 pm (UTC)
I rewatched the film ARGO at the weekend, the true story of the six escapees from the Iranian hostage crisis, who were brought out by the CIA under the guise of being Canadian film producers scouting for a location for their sci-fi film called Argo. I was then reading about it afterwards where I learned that coincidentally the Swissair plane on which they left was named Aargau after one of the Swiss cantons. That wasn’t in the film — probably thought it would make it seem too far fetched!
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry.
Less than 12 mins pre-brekker. No ticks, no crosses.
Thanks setter and U.
No NEUROTIC HAVERING, no,
It was more “COSMIC trip
In a fast rocket ship”
THROTTLE open — all systems ARGO
By the way, I am still being told I have been banned from commenting on the journal , but I can still post this. I have noticed on the Club comments people are saying they are banned, perhaps there is a glitch somewhere and they should try posting, it may go through.
I have visited La Musée Rodin in Paris. The Kiss is an amazing sculpture.
I didn’t pass ‘O’ level metalwork. 50 years later, I have learned what ANNEALING is.
Thanks ulaca and setter.
Might have struggled with djinni if I hadn’t recalled a previous answer within the last couple of weeks I think. I’ll now consider what my three wishes might be if I had a personal djinni, that should help to fill the time for a nanosecond.
COD ayatollah but had a passing fancy for alec and throttle as well.
Bring and buy sales call to mind Blue Peter charity appeals of my childhood.
Didn’t know NI (N1) for Islington, but should do since my company has an office there. Not been there for a long time…
Didn’t parse NEUROTIC, as U for socially acceptable hasn’t yet embedded itself in my brain and I didn’t see the blue = erotic connection, or AYATOLLAH, for which I required all the checkers.
Not too tricky otherwise, though I had the same brief hesitation over HAVERING as others and had to think a bit to get away from ‘rag’ as the charity event in 5d.
FOI Dine
LOI Ayatollah
COD Plantation
The one which caused me most palpitations was GALA, as the _A_A fill looked infinitely variable, and I expected the young girl to be a SAL or some other abridged woman. Festivals, for all I know, might fill the spaces in any number of ways.
In my experience, village churches, choral societies and WIs rely on BABS for a sizeable chunk of their income, often recycling the same items multiple times, as in raffles.
I sympathise on the blogslip: I once almost completed writing up a blog before realising I was on the previous day’s crossword, and had to start from scratch (including solving, of course). At 1.30 in the morning, that’s not funny (except in retrospect, and perhaps to everyone else).
As Mel Brooks said, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.”
Like Tim I always think of The Proclaimers when I see HAVER(ing).