The clue for 17 was ‘Knockout over the abyss, wherein is brevity (8)’

Knockout over = STUN backwards leading to NUTS with abyss = HELL and the definition is brevity = NUTSHELL as in ‘in a nutshell’
I suppose that nutshell by itself is argueable

“of Foreign” for DE? No brilliance there.

“TIMES LEADERS”? Never heard of the phrase. Is it a Brit thing? I may have been a bit lost as Sil @ 16 on some of these. If so, that’s a fair cop, since this is a British puzzle.

SAMPLE is weak.

A RAISIN is not a fruit, the fruit is a grape.

While 7 was nice, I hate the use of “notes” to mean any number over 1 of letters between A and G or perhaps any combination of the Italian names for the notes. That just strikes me as lazy. But that’s the wavelength thing? If DE in 1 was “of Foreign” and DE here is “notes”, why not figure out something interesting to use? There is a state in the US abbreviated DE…

15 was too verbose, too many words that were just filler.

17 was awful, IMHO. Was “knockout” supposed to mean “NUTS”? Really?

Oh well, as I said, I think it was a wavelength thing, and even though I got most of it, I had piles of squiggly lines and question marks pointing to various clues.

But to sum up, thanks to the Grauniad and Gordius for the very low priced (free!) entertainment, and Flashling and everyone else for the blog!

PS, I think Robi@8 is correct on 23.

I think we agree that enough is enough.

Rorschach isolates the meaning for AMPLE well. If we were to correct the clue, we’d get

a quarter is more than enough (equals)
S is more than enough (equals)
S AMPLE.

Works for me, as Jack Rosenberg once said, with or without the IS. Perfectly good clue, in that respect.

Or do I mean I think that ample?

While this discussion should perhaps stop now, I keep on asking because I really would like to understand it.

Could you please explain WHY the word ‘is’ is not superfluous?
I can’t read S AMPLE as S=AMPLE (if that’s what it all about).
Or is it =S + AMPLE, which I find odd too?

Re 26a – agree the apostrophe S would have stifled complaint (except one apparently) but whether “is” should be effectively allowable padding (such as articles and “to” with a verb in the ximenean cryptic grammar) in non-ximenean grammars is an interesting point.

There’s probably a case to be made for it on the basis that, eg in the present case:

“A quarter” = S
“A quarter is” S

enable the “is” to be swallowed.

More generally “is” representing equality might give that word reasonable free range – obviously it also get used as alinkword on that basis.

Re 14a – “But” always seems to cause a slight bump – it gets in as a conjuction almost like “and” but how you throw away that additional implication of reluctance I’m not really sure. Presumably there’s an example somewhere which excuses it but I can’t think of one myself.

Re 12a – Times Leaders were (mainly during the time of John Jacob Astor – uncle of The Observer’s David) renowned for being controversial at times – in contrast with the paper’s (pre Murdochian) image of staidness.