There were one or two tricky or unknown bits and pieces here but I was not delayed by much and missed my half-hour target only by 2 minutes.
As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]
| Across | |
| 1 | Mean girl given ring by boy (7) |
| BETOKEN – BET (girl), O (ring), KEN (boy) | |
| 5 | Smothering resistance, recklessly pays up for ancient document (7) |
| PAPYRUS – Anagram [recklessly] of PAYS UP containing [smothering] R (resistance). I checked that this can mean the ancient document itself and not just the material that it’s made of. | |
| 9 | Devise principle inspiring a key royal dynasty (11) |
| PLANTAGENET – PLAN (devise), then TENET (principle) containing [inspiring] A + G (key) | |
| 10 | Old coin identified by woman on radio (3) |
| SOU – Sounds like [on radio] “Sue” (woman) | |
| 11 | Minor initially lacking in vision (6) |
| SLIGHT – L{acking} [initially] in SIGHT (vision) | |
| 12 | Produce notes about indifferent lecture (8) |
| SCOLDING – SING (produce notes) containing [about] COLD (indifferent) | |
| 14 | Supreme commander lives with short man by common (13) |
| GENERALISSIMO – GENERAL (common), IS (lives), SIMO{n} (man) [short]. Took me a while to spot all the wordplay here. | |
| 17 | Adapt without guile, given time inside otherwise (13) |
| ALTERNATIVELY – ALTER (adapt), NAIVELY (without guile), containing T (time) [given…inside] | |
| 21 | Servant’s argument at home? (8) |
| DOMESTIC – Two meanings. Followers of UK police dramas will be aware of a ‘domestic’ in this sense, and Quickie solvers will have seen this only last Wednesday clued (in the plural) as: The arguments for maids? (9). It gave rise to some discussion which can be viewed here. | |
| 23 | Fruit and wine consumed by two-thirds of withered old women (6) |
| CITRON – IT (wine – Italian vermouth) contained [consumed] by CRON{es} (withered old women) [two-thirds]. I didn;t know this as a fruit, but SOED has it as ‘a fruit resembling the lemon but larger, less acid, and with thicker rind’. | |
| 25 | Be sick, spitting out fermented beer? (3) |
| AIL – Sounds like [spitting out] ALE (fermented beer) | |
| 26 | Aficionado jumping over arched structure (3,8) |
| FAN VAULTING – FAN (aficionado), VAULTING (jumping over) | |
| 27 | Raptor’s way to get into vessel crossing river (7) |
| KESTREL – ST (way – street) contained by [to get into] KEEL (vessel), which in turn contains [crossing] R (river). It seems to have come up quite a lot recently so I think by now most regulars will know KEEL as a ship, and not just as part of one. | |
| 28 | Unscrupulous lawyer invested in trashy stereo (7) |
| SHYSTER – Hidden [invested] in {tra}SHY STER{eo} | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Go round and reportedly fork out for permit (6) |
| BYPASS – Sounds like [reportedly] “buy” [fork out for], PASS (permit) | |
| 2 | Journalist finally in a rush to produce copy? (7) |
| TRACING – {journalis}T [finally], RACING (in a rush) | |
| 3 | More eager, longing to replace first European cooker (9) |
| KITCHENER – ITCH (longing) replaces the first E (European) in K{e}ENER (more eager) to provide us with our answer. I’ve never heard of this before but SOED has KITCHENER as ‘a cooking range fitted with various appliances such as ovens, plate-warmers, water heaters, etc’. | |
| 4 | Drink thrown up by hotel close at hand (4) |
| NIGH – GIN (drink) reversed [thrown up], H (hotel) | |
| 5 | Writing mostly about one’s antibiotic (10) |
| PENICILLIN – PENCILLIN{g} (writing) [mostly] containing [about] I (one). I made very heavy weather of this by not remembering how to spell the drug and thinking that ‘writing mostly’ was PENNIN{g} | |
| 6 | Part of stock maybe supplied by papa and others? (5) |
| PETAL – P (papa), ET AL (others). ‘Stock’ as in the flower of that name. | |
| 7 | Composer and Arctic explorer in one (7) |
| ROSSINI – ROSS (Arctic explorer), IN, I (one). The explorer is Sir James Clark Ross 1800-1862. | |
| 8 | Nurse got ruffled? Something fishy here (8) |
| STURGEON – Anagram [ruffled] of NURSE GOT. This fish keeps coming up on my watch. | |
| 13 | Crazy, Gershwin accepting allotment by lake (10) |
| IRRATIONAL – IRA (Gershwin) containing [accepting] RATION (allotment), L (lake). Here’s the overture to the brothers Gershwin show Girl Crazy with stunning orchestration, I think possibly by Robert Rusell Bennet as used in the original 1930 Broadway production. | |
| 15 | Vandalised city’s plea for discipline (9) |
| SPECIALTY – Anagram [vandalised] of CITYS PLEA | |
| 16 | Ant-bear’s way to board a Bible rescue boat (8) |
| AARDVARK – A, RD (way – road this time!) contained by [to board] AV (Bible -Authorised Version), ARK (rescue boat). Many seasoned solvers will have known ‘ant-bear’ and biffed the answer without bothering with the rest of the clue. | |
| 18 | Barrow corporation bully regularly going to America (7) |
| TUMULUS – TUM (corporation), {b}U{l}L{y} [regularly], US (America) | |
| 19 | Former partisan’s uniform stolen from the solver’s chest (7) |
| YORKIST – YO{u}R (solver’s) [uniform – U – stolen], KIST (chest). I didn’t know the chest but the answer was more or less a write-in. The House of York was a subdivision of the Plantagenets at 9ac. | |
| 20 | Old queen keeping horse and wild ass (6) |
| ONAGER – O (old) + ER (queen) containing [keeping] NAG (horse) | |
| 22 | Peter Rabbit’s head is more secure (5) |
| SAFER – SAFE (peter), R{abbit} [’s head] | |
| 24 | Mr Fawlty familiarly adopting a South African title (4) |
| BAAS – BAS (Mr Fawlty – Basil – familiarly) containing [adopting] A. Another word unknown to me. | |
I was also a bit worried about the unknown chest in YORKIST so I wasted a bit of time failing to come up with anything else.
25a) Be sick, spitting out fermented
15d) Vandalised city’s plea for discipline beer? (3) (9)
Could only assume that “beer? (3)” had somehow migrated to the Down column…
Took an amalgamated 35 min, so on the easier side for me. A couple that I didn’t fully parse, missed the AV bit of the ‘and-bear’ and didn’t take the time to look up KIST in 19d. That misprint mentioned by Sean above caused some head-scratching with the homophone for AIL, but putting it in from definition sufficed.
Did not know the commonly listed words by others here but word play helped out or the answer from definition alone got the grid completed.
Finished in the NW corner with the unknown KITCHENER (wondered how Horatio was getting involved), BYPASS and SLIGHT the last one in.