Other than that little adventure, it all went in fairly straightforwardly, although SQUASH RACKETS took a moment to reveal itself. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.
Across
1 Petty Officer’s time with Jack maybe? Write home about it on this? (8)
POSTCARD – P{etty} O{fficer}’S and T{ime} with CARD (Jack maybe). The question mark in the definition indicates that other forms of writing material are also available.
5 Return of transport system? He’s not to be believed (4)
LIAR – RAIL (our most reliable railway system?) reversed (returned)
8 Once more avail oneself of second half of Chartreuse (5)
REUSE – Simply follow the instructions and REUSE the second half of chartreuse. Chartreuse, incidentally, is the herbal liqueur made by monks since 1737. If you have never tried it – don’t!
9 Inquisitive making cold female angry (7)
FURIOUS – Inquisitive would be CURIOUS. If one swaps the C{old} for an F{emale} (making Cold Female), the answer pops up as if by magic
11 Southern shops check television (5,6)
SMALL SCREEN – S{outhern} MALL (shops) SCREEN (check, as in to screen applications). These days, televisions seem not to be so small!
13 Oddly after wins, King vulnerable (2,4)
AT RISK – Odd letters of A{f}T{e}R {w}I{n}S followed by K{ing}
14 Earnings once I’m working (6)
INCOME – Anagram (working) of [ONCE I’M]
16 Movement of pendulum affected at collision (11)
OSCILLATION – Anagram (affected) of [AT COLLISION]. There is a lovely page on Wikipedia on pendulums, worth a look if you can spare the time.
18 Society, one advancing money, very small (7)
SLENDER –The S is from S{ociety}, and one advancing money would be a LENDER. Equating SLENDER with ‘very small’ might be considered a bit of a push, but seem to work fine, for example, when I assess my chances of winning the lottery – i.e. I have a slender / very small chance.
19 Combine having some fun, it entertains (5)
UNITE – Hidden (some) in {f}UN, IT E{ntertains}
20 Were defeated, upsetting lots (4)
LOST – Anagram (upsetting) of [LOTS] – surely today’s easiest clue!
21 Stuck in mud maybe, need to have reflective look around (4,4)
KNEE-DEEP – NEED (need) inside PEEK reversed (reflected look around)
Down
1 In proper kit – a benefit from work (4)
PERK – Hidden in {pro}PER K{it}. PERK is short for perquisite (lovely old word!) and is most commonly found in British English, so may not be as obvious to some of our solvers as it was to me.
2 Game, suppress scams (6,7)
SQUASH RACKETS – SQUASH (suppress) and RACKETS (scams). More often referred to these days as simply SQUASH
3 Roman emperor’s brought over a fellow’s cold dish (6,5)
CAESAR SALAD – CAESAR’S (Roman emperor’s) over A LAD (a fellow). Hands up if you wanted to spell it CEASAR like I did!
4 Soccer official with complaint gets second drink (6)
REFILL – REF{eree} (soccer official) with ILL (with complaint)
6 We note minions relaxed outside working hours (2,4,3,4)
IN ONE’S OWN TIME – Anagram of [WE NOTE MINIONS]
7 Was indignant about unopened gift at end with no name (8)
RESENTED – Unopened gift is {p}RESENT and end with no N{ame} is E{n}D. It makes a change to calling up the newspaper person again for ED
10 Change arrangements in relation to Conservative personality (11)
RECONFIGURE – RE (in relation to) and CON{servative} followed by FIGURE (personality)
12 Come to life in California merry-go-round (8)
CAROUSEL – ROUSE (come to life) inside CAL{ifornia}.
15 Engineers accommodated in farm building, dull (6)
BARREN – RE (engineers, from Royal Engineeers) ‘accommodated’ in BARN (farm building)
17 Old car of poor quality, roof coming off (4)
HEAP – First letter dropped (roof coming off) from {c}HEAP (poor quality)
COD knee deep.
Not wholly convinced about barren=dull but Chambers says it’s fine
As to SQUASH RACKETS, the original and older game was simply called “rackets”. It still exists but in the UK survives only at a few public schools and the Queen’s Club. It is a completely lunatic game – imagine playing squash in a giant court (rackets courts are twice the size of squash courts) made out of granite or some other very hard stone and using a golf ball!! The key point about Rackets is that it uses a hard ball, which absolutely pings around the court at incredible speeds. As a result it is a difficult game with generally short rallies. At some point in the early nineteenth century some boys at Harrow decided that Rackets would be more fun if the rallies lasted longer and so they wanted the ball to travel more slowly. They therefore started using a softer rubber ball and made a hole in it so that it would “squash” against the wall. This variant became known as “Squash Rackets” – now universally known simply as squash. It took over because it is so much easier to play (and squash courts take up less room than Rackets courts).
So – it isn’t that we call it squash and everyone else calls it rackets. Squash and Rackets are entirely different games.
Templar
PlayUpPompey
Unusually, I got all but two across clues on the first pass, which made the downs mostly straightforward.
COD 6a which I think would have been tricky if I hadn’t got all the checkers.
Thanks Rotter and Hurley.
There were some easy hiddens in this but otherwise I had to work at it.
Eventually done in 24 minutes.
I now will look up Racquet which I would have put in as first choice if it had fitted. David