I found this hard to finish without looking stuff up, and not especially enjoyable. I wasn’t keen on A for one at 5a, globulin for protein, DU for Dutch, TIN for aerosol, or those obscure African bush people. Well, if I don’t know it, it’s obscure. I hope you had more fun than I did, although I now know about organ pipes. I liked the lavish picnic and the DD for setting.
Definitions underlined in bold, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, anagrinds in italics, [deleted letters in square brackets].
| Across | |
| 1 | English working in South African region in very early days? (8) |
| NEONATAL – E, ON (working) inside NATAL. An easy starter. | |
| 5 | Old land use system‘s one required over in Florida (6) |
| FEUDAL – a rather clumsy surface and IMO less than good parsing. A = one, DUE = required, all reversed inside FL the abbr. for Florida. | |
| 10 | Relocating elite moving between Magdalen and Christ Church? (15) |
| INTERCOLLEGIATE – a nice anagram of (RELOCATING ELITE)*, referring to two Oxford colleges. | |
| 11 | Large exhibitions regularly held in the open (7) |
| EXPOSED -EXPOS (large exhibitions), hElD = regularly held. | |
| 12 | Warning spirit has been adulterated (7) |
| BANSHEE – (HAS BEEN)*. I thought banshees were more about wailing than warning, but presumably both. | |
| 13 | Rebuke harshly as fish in back of truck spoils (8) |
| KEELHAUL – I couldn’t see this one until I had all the checking letters in place. K (back of truck), HAUL (spoils of a robbery), with EEL inside. | |
| 15 | Part of work of worker in company (5) |
| CANTO – ANT a worker, inside CO for company. | |
| 18 | Lives around northern Dutch river (5) |
| INDUS – IS (lives) with N, DU[tch] inserted. Does DU often stand for Dutch? | |
| 20 | Fail to advance entirely, it’s said, without company (8) |
| LONESOME – sounds like LOAN SOME, = fail to advance (e.g. money) entirely. | |
| 23 | Prompt takes against Antigone’s part (7) |
| INSTANT – hidden as above. | |
| 25 | Found that rhino is seen regularly in part of North America (7) |
| ONTARIO – alternate letters as above. | |
| 26 | Ironical trait is unfortunately inconsistent with logic (15) |
| IRRATIONALISTIC – (IRONICAL TRAIT IS)*. Not an everyday word, but fair enough. | |
| 27 | Adding yolks and whites to, say, spirit and finally drinking (6) |
| EGGING – EG (say, for example); GIN (spirit) G (end of drinking). | |
| 28 | Month right in capital city of Russia (8) |
| NOVGOROD – NOV (month) GOOD (capital), insert R for right. Fortunately, I’d heard of it, from reading spy novels. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Fixed new trouble with editor (6) |
| NAILED – N (new) AIL (trouble) ED[itor]. | |
| 2 | Extended lavish picnic, perhaps? (9) |
| OUTSPREAD – an OUT SPREAD could be a lavish picnic. | |
| 3 | Famous statue, Oscar, in aluminium and tin? (7) |
| AEROSOL – EROS (famous statue), O[scar], inside AL = aluminium. Is an aerosol a tin? It could be in a tin, or in something else. I’m just griping because it took me ages to stop thinking about famous statues beginning with A. | |
| 4 | Keen to go round ring bypass (5) |
| AVOID – AVID (keen) with O inside. | |
| 6 | Chap mostly in charge of enhancing stock (7) |
| EUGENIC – EUGEN[E] = a chap, mostly, IC = in charge. I thought of the definition then found the chap. | |
| 7 | Want to eliminate Republican loss (5) |
| DEATH – DEARTH loses its R. A reverse of Sunday’s clue. | |
| 8 | Stay with key Biblical kingdom in allegiance (8) |
| LIEGEDOM – LIE (stay), G (a key), EDOM (a Biblical kingdom which I eventually remembered). Apparently EDOM means red in Hebrew and the kingdom was founded by Esau, who had red hair. Allegedly. Another clumsy clue IMO. | |
| 9 | Good joint of meat containing a lot of roughage and protein (8) |
| GLOBULIN – G (good) LOIN (cut of meat), insert BUL[L] a lot of roughage. Is bull roughage? The globulins are a family of proteins, not one specific protein, if I am allowed to be pedantic. EDIT as pointed out below, by commenters, it is probably BUL[K] not bull but I still don’t like it. | |
| 14 | Melting away, no appeal with Scotland’s rising (8) |
| ABLATION – All reversed, NO, IT (appeal), ALBA (Scotland, in Gaelic). | |
| 16 | Run a metro badly, producing fractional dividend (9) |
| NUMERATOR – (RUN A METRO)*. The part above the line in a fraction, to be divided by the denominator. | |
| 17 | Reduce car’s energy going round motorway (8) |
| MINIMISE – MINI’S (car’s) E[nergy], insert MI = M1 motorway. | |
| 19 | Harsh area held by Bushmen (7) |
| SPARTAN – PART (area) inside SAN. I had to learn from Wiki that the SAN are a hunter-gatherer people in southern Africa. Who knew? | |
| 21 | Mounting or going down (7) |
| SETTING – double definition, as in setting a gemstone, and the setting sun. | |
| 22 | Adjusted organ pipes in space outside church (6) |
| VOICED – VOID (space) outside CE (church). Faced with *O*CED in this clue, I wondered about VOICED and learnt from Wiki that fiddling around skilfully with organ pipes to adjust their sounds is properly called “voicing”. I didn’t know that before, but organists probably do. | |
| 24 | Second Mrs Grundy’s young man? (5) |
| SPRIG – S for second, and Mrs Grundy was the archetypal PRIG often referred to in literature (she was not familiar to me, though). And Collins Online gives “sprig” definition 4. (informal, rare) a youth. | |
| 25 | Go to a resettled region down under (5) |
| OTAGO – (GO TO A)*. It’s in the South Island of New Zealand, not the bit I’ve been to but I had heard of it. | |
DNF. SPROG as was firmly in The Archers territory with Mrs Grundy… definitely not a prig. Found the first half (NW corner and some of NE) ok. the rest was a bit of a slog, and as others have said not particularly enjoyable. had heard of SAN through various Africa books and I think, The Gods Must Be Crazy, which if you havent ever seen you are missing something. thanks Setter and Pip. or should that be Pop.
Only just got round to this. I do agree with others’ comments on the loose definitions, and would add that the feudal system was not one of land *use* but of social control. however I enjoyed the many geographical references, not least the double inclusion in 8d of the biblical kingdom and (perhaps unintentionally) the Belgian Town- LIEGE. So thanks to setter and Piquet.
v late to this as working through a backlog, but in case others also come to the blog late like I do, I was moved to comment because no other contributors above try to argue that SITTING is a perfectly valid answer?
He was MOUNTING/SITTING an object on top of the cabinet; and
How is your dinner GOING DOWN/SITTING?
(I also failed on SPROG so am less annoyed than I would have been if SETTING were the only ‘error’!)
Have to agree with a few of the gripes today, as some of the words were new to me (LIEGEDOM, SPRIG, ABLATION and IRRATIONALISTIC, really? What’s wrong with IRRATIONAL?) without being cleverly or generously clued. But I ended-up with the same number of gaps as usual, so am not about to “whine”!🫣