Mostly very enjoyable but I was 40 minutes in and missing two letters from the grid when I realised I was looking for an answer I probably wouldn’t know, so I cut my losses and used aids to finish things off.
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]. “Aural wordplay” is in quotation marks. I now use a tilde sign ~ to indicate an insertion point in containment clues. I usually omit all reference to juxtaposition indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.
 Across |
|
|---|---|
| 1 | Appropriate how birds returned (6) |
| ASSUME – AS (how) then EMUS (birds) reversed [returned] | |
| 4 | What’s Oscar carried back in preserve bottle? (8) |
| JEROBOAM – O (Oscar) + BORE (carried) reversed [back] contained by [in] J~AM (preserve). Roughly 4 normal bottles. | |
| 10 | Creature natural at jumping (9) |
| TARANTULA – Anagram [jumping] of NATURAL AT | |
| 11 | City lover from Scotland surrounded by noise (5) |
| DIJON – JO (lover from Scotland) contained [surrounded] by DI~N (noise) | |
| 12 | Food processor gives diet out by leaflet (9,5) |
| DIGESTIVE TRACT – Anagram [out] of GIVES DIET, then TRACT (leaflet) | |
| 14 | Pottery line coming in handy (5) |
| DELFT – L (line) contained by [coming in] DEFT (handy). Been there, bought some pottery. | |
| 16 | Dingy tee I transformed with this? (3-6) |
| TIE-DYEING – Anagram [ transformed] of DINGY TEE I | |
| 18 | Debacle minutes after agent for change nearly admits Conservative (9) |
| CATACLYSM – CATA~LYS{t} (agent for change) [nearly] contains [admits] C (Conservative), then M (minutes) | |
| 20 | Give birth with assistance (5) |
| WHELP – W (with), HELP (assistance) | |
| 21 | The giving of second award for sketch, perhaps (14) |
| REPRESENTATION – RE-PRESENTATION (the giving of second award) | |
| 25 | Hatred banning leader from platform (5) |
| ODIUM – {p}ODIUM (platform) [banning leader from…] | |
| 26 | Desire to cease cooking wheat in chef’s creation (5,4) |
| DEATH WISH – Anagram [cooking] of WHEAT contained by [in] D~ISH (chef’s creation) | |
| 27 | Intend to stuff, say, great vegetable (8) |
| EGGPLANT – PLAN (intend) contained by [to stuff] EG (say) + G~T (great) | |
| 28 | Garment belonging to Glaswegian bachelor smells (6) |
| BREEKS – B (bachelor), REEKS (smells) – trousers / breeches | |
| Down |
|
|---|---|
| 1 | Learner without instruction went to work under car (10) |
| AUTODIDACT – AUTO (car), DID ACT (went to work) | |
| 2 | Tiny excerpt from Pilgrim’s Progress (5) |
| SPROG – Hidden in [excerpt from] {Pilgrim’}S PROG{ress}. ‘Tiny’ is a noun here. | |
| 3 | Disapproves of alien attitude (7) |
| MINDSET – MINDS (disapproves of), ET (alien) | |
| 5 | Eliminate onset of Americanisation in language (5) |
| ERASE – A{mericanisation} [ onset of…] contained by [in] ER~SE (language) | |
| 6 | Controlled German article seized by French airport (7) |
| ORDERLY – DER (German article) contained [seized] by OR~LY (French airport) | |
| 7 | Fair goal (9) |
| OBJECTIVE – Two meanings | |
| 8 | Times piece introduces language of island race (4) |
| MANX – MAN (chess piece), X (times) | |
| 9 | Internal lake splits dock in an odd way (8) |
| QUAINTLY – INT (internal) + L (lake) contained by [splits] QUA~Y (dock) | |
| 13 | Plant cookware in stove so (10) |
| AGAPANTHUS – PAN (cookware) contained by [in] AGA (stove) ~THUS (so). Aka: African lily. | |
| 15 | Latvian band including English characters (9) |
| LETTERING – LETT (Latvian) ~ RING (band) containing [including] E (English) | |
| 17 | Cooked mean melt with this? (8) |
| EMMENTAL – Anagram [cooked] of MEAN MELT. Cheese. | |
| 19 | Artist dressed in light brown or dark brown (7) |
| CARAMEL – RA (artist) contained by [dressed in] CA~MEL (light brown) | |
| 20 | Erode article, erode all round (7) |
| WEATHER – WEA~R (erode) containing [all round] THE (article) | |
| 22 | American transporter used van failing to start (5) |
| SEDAN – {u}SED + {v}AN [failing to start]. US word for a saloon car. | |
| 23 | Organic compound one is digging up? (5) |
| IMINE – I MINE (one is digging up). As mentioned in the intro I realised I wouldn’t know this word so I’m glad I gave up on it and used aids. ‘Is’ is superfluous to the wordplay and led me to believe the answer would contain an S, which proved a distraction. But for that I might just have stood a chance of spotting how the clue worked and arriving the correct solution. | |
| 24 | Pizza shunned by California region (4) |
| ZONE – {Cal}ZONE (pizza) [shunned by California] | |
Same problem as Jack with IMINE, not a word I knew and was convinced the answer would contain an ‘S’. Also failed to see BREEKS, another NHO and missed what now seems like a simple piece of wordplay for the answer. I liked this and thought a lot of the clues quite misleading – in a good way. DEATH WISH for one where I thought it would be an anagram of ‘wheat and chef’ at first. Liked JEROBOAM and CATACLYSM. Thought AUTODIDACT was very good and took most of the crossers for me to see it. Liked DELFT. COD to MANX.
Thanks Jack and setter.
Somehow, AGAPANTHUS was constructed from wordplay, early on, much more quickly than I was able to think of IMINE, my LOI. POI JEROBOAM.
Fortunately, I did eventually parse imine, and entered it as a likely organic compound. I was uncertain how to spell jeroboam, and had to wait for the crossers. On the other hand, I biffed autodidact, death wish, and cataclysm. My LOI was zone, and I puzzled over the cryptic for a while before suddenly seeing what was going on.
Time: 23:38
‘One is digging up’ translates to I MINE quite neatly, if you think of ‘one’ as a pronoun that can in formal contexts replace ‘I’. Imagine King Charles speaking, for instance.
That said, I had to look it up too!
I’ve reached a milestone with this puzzle, not a personal best time by a long shot, but the first time finishing a 15×15 with everything parsed. (Not that I knew IMINE, of course not, but the wordplay suddenly came into view.)
45 minutes of enjoyment and a real sense of accomplishment, what could be better? Why am I awake, it’s way past my bedtime. Good night. Thanks to setter and jack.