Some brilliant clues in the mix – I loved the elegant surfaces of “Ray washes trousers and pants” and “Short fat kid visits relations”. Deceptively simple, but amazingly hard to do. 4dn, 8dn and 16dn are brilliantly inventive, and 17dn may be a WOW (word of the week). I don’t know if 8dn, and indeed 9ac, quite work – can anyone add enlightenment to my own attempts to parse them? But even if they don’t you cannot fault this puzzle’s ambition and originality. Well Friday’d, setter, well Friday’d!
1 Urge to fight: one’s content to be beaten eventually? (3-3)
EGG-BOX – EGG [urge] + BOX [to fight]. The content of an egg-box is eggs, which may eventually get beaten
5 Rode with buggy as car started improperly? (3-5)
HOT-WIRED – (RODE WITH*) [“buggy”]
9 Valued systems regularly used in these times (8)
ASSESSED – S{y}S{t}E{m} S{y}S{t}E{m} in A.D. [these times]. Plus an extra SE that, I cannot tell a lie, I don’t know where it comes from.
10 Poorly preserved (4,2)
LAID UP – double def
11 Daring to spoon jam (10)
BOTTLENECK – BOTTLE [daring] + NECK [to spoon]
13 Religious pioneer, one going against the mainstream (4)
EDDY – double def. Mary Baker Eddy is the founder of Christian Science
14 For Caesar, that is, time to depart (4)
IDES – ID ES{t} [Latin for “that is”, minus T(ime)], &lit
15 See that on a broadcast and be amazed (3,4,3)
EAT ONE’S HAT – (SEE THAT ON A*) [“broadcast”]
18 Short fat kid visits relations (5-5)
GREAT-AUNTS – GREAS{e} [“short” fat] “visited” by TAUNT [kid]
20 A physicist, he died after backing human rights (4)
BOHR – OB(iit) reversed + H(uman) R(ights)
21 Coloured stone that’s become white when removed from casing (4)
OPAL – {g}O PAL{e}
23 Bridge repair, one very often short? (10)
CROSSPATCH – CROSS [bridge] + PATCH [repair] – a short-tempered person
25 Eleven of Italy’s fifty islands — rest over to the west (6)
NAPOLI – L I [fifty | islands] to the east/right of NAP O [rest | over]. Italian football team, topically today
26 Give best after admitting one’s disadvantage (8)
HANDICAP – HAND [give] + CAP [best] “admitting” I
28 French department’s English staff returned to hold party (8)
DORDOGNE – ENG ROD reversed, “holding” DO
29 Extra’s stage farewell (3,3)
LEG BYE – LEG [stage] + BYE [farewell]
DOWN
2 Spare, comparatively ancient, fuel tank (9)
GASHOLDER – GASH [spare] + OLDER [comparatively ancient]. I had never come across “gash” as meaning “spare” before, but apparently it’s old naval lingo. Maybe
3 Ray washes trousers and pants (7)
BREATHS – RE [= ray = a drop of golden sun = musical note] “trousered” by BATHS [washes]
4 Letters from abroad: at least twenty two? (3)
XIS – two XIs [elevens] are at least 22.
5 Country fellow’s work in garden including digging at the margins (5)
HODGE – HOE “including” D{iggin}G. An “English rustic or farm labourer”
6 Willing to move: one is keen, let’s get moving! (11)
TELEKINESIS – (I IS KEEN LET’S*)
7 Reserve medicines — spare bottles (7)
ICINESS – “bottled” in {med}ICINES S{pare}
8 Twenty, on leaving Guinea, acquiring horse? (5)
EQUID – {twenty on}E QUID. Isn’t a guinea 21 shillings, not 21 quid? Love the idea though Apparently a “quid” also once referred to a guinea! Live and learn!
12 Striking, say outside, you whip and punch (3-8)
EYE-CATCHING – E.G. [say] “outside” YE, CAT, CHIN
16 What is needed to make its dough (3)
TIN – “is” needed a T IN to make “iTs”
17 Flexible management of redesigned coach yard (9)
ADHOCRACY – (COACH YARD*). Lovely word
19 Singer embracing Liberal lord, everyone embraced by Count! (3,4)
ALL TOLD – ALTO “embracing” L, + LD
20 Fired, perhaps, after lying about being led by bishop (7)
BLAZING – LAZING [lying about] led by B(ishop)
22 Standard way of talking up trouble in gallery (5)
PRADO – reversed R.P. [Received Pronunciation] + ADO [trouble]
24 Yellowish ring sent up by fag (5)
OCHRE – take CHORE [fag] and send the O [ring] upwards to the very top
27 Duck removing foot from river (3)
NIL – NIL{e}
Andyf
I’m not bitter but that is a very tortuous clue!
I loved TIN, OCHRE, GREAT-AUNTS.
Hit-and-hope on ‘gash’, ‘crosspatch’ and one or two other things. Luckily no red squares.
Everything else went in correctly, even if not fully parsed.
COD ides for its simplicity.
(Are there different ways of describing finished with some mistakes and did not complete all the clues? Or are both covered by DNF?)
Thanks Verlaine and setter (apart from 8dn)
DNF because of “Equid” and “Eddy”, never having heard of Mary Baker.
Wasn’t keen on “Opal” either, removing the casing from two words?!?
Agree that “Adhocracy” is WOW and enjoyed “Great Aunts”.
HODGE from wordplay, SE delayed by BYE BYE but I had a feeling it was wrong and spotting that helped tidy things up
Rather liked it even with the abomination that was EQUID — even if someone can convince me of the parsing at best it is extremely unclear which is enough to give it a lower rating out of 10 than Raheem Sterling and Harold Kane this evening…(let us not go there 😀)
Thanks all