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.
50:27 but had to look up IMINE. I was looking at words for like (=dig), reversed.
COD DELFT
35 minutes but failed on the NHO IMINE. I had heard of IMIDE as a chemical term probably also from one of these crosswords, so in it went and of course it didn’t parse. Spotted the pangram which helped greatly with JEROBOAM and MANX. COD to ZONE.
Yes, IMIDE seemed familiar to me too (not that I have any idea what it is) and I see it appeared here only about 6 weeks ago on February 11th in Times cryptic 29463.
9:17, of which at least 4 minutes spent trawling the alphabet for IMINE. I nearly gave up. I don’t think ‘is’ is superfluous: indeed I don’t think the clue works without it, because it requires ‘digging up’ to indicate MINE. As u says you have to take the whole phrase together.
I’ll get in before Jerry to point out the Americanism at 27ac 😉
I think it still might get mentioned in dispatches…
My there are a lot of EMUS about these days. Anyway I too failed at IMINE, throwing in the towel at 23.12. An enjoyable puzzle, thanks to Jack for the parsing of JEROBOAM and MANX (oh, chess piece, doh!).
From You’re A Big Girl Now:
A change in the WEATHER is known to be extreme
But what’s the sense of changing horses in midstream?
I’m going out of my mind, oh, with a pain that stops and starts
Like a corkscrew to my heart
Ever since we’ve been apart
34 minutes. A relief from yesterday’s which for some reason I found difficult. Still, even with our old friends the EMUS I had some problems thinking of AS for ‘how’ at 1a and much later I needed the checked letters for AUTODIDACT. The extended non-cryptic defs for TARANTULA and EMMENTAL bought a smile and I thought WEATHER was clever.
IMINE was new though seemed the most likely answer from the wordplay. The OED def, probably a dumbed down version from some weighty Chemistry tome, is completely incomprehensible to me and will remain so!
A rare completion before going to the first tee. About 22′ so easier than yesterday but also not as interesting I thought.
As a Glaswegian (well almost) and married to a Jo, I still get caught out with the Scottish lover, its NHO apart from here (and don’t quote Burns, it would help me!). Also I’ve never called my trousers BREEKS, though I have heard it obviously.
Another “appropriate” today and the Flower built from parts. Fairly straightforward.
Thanks Jack and setter.
I cleared last winter’s rotted-down leaves from my AGAPANTHUS at the weekend, revealing the new year’s growth beneath. I’m told that leaving last year’s mess on top until Spring works as frost protection, and that’s my excuse for being lazy about it.
Anyway, it certainly helped with this puzzle, as did noting the pangram possibility just before considering JEROBOAM. Fairly straightforward solve spreading top-to-bottom, left-to-right to finish with IMINE, which seemed reasonable given that I’d heard of “amine”. 39m.