A really good puzzle from Dac today with skilful misdirection, great variety and invention, and all clear in the end.
Solving time: 27 mins
* = anagram < =reversal
ACROSS
5 B(AY R)UM
10 BUSH I DO Samurai Code (Japan)
11 ORGANON Hidden – system of logic
12 YALE “Starts here” i.e. first letters of the first four words in the clue. Though Yale entrants would usually have had some previous schooling…
13 BIG B(R)OTHER Think I’ve seen this idea used before. Even those of us who carefully avoid it all will know what the surface reading refers to, I think. Very good.
15 JO (E BLOG) GS Jogging the memory.
20 P EARL GREY A colour and a tea.
22 SKI(p)-JUMPERS
27 REALTOR (rare lot)* Equivalent of estate agent in some areas where property is known as real estate.
29 WEE-WEE Clear to the youngest solvers.
30 (TEA CHES)T trains = teaches Nicely misleading. T = originally transported (first letter)
DOWN
3 B AIL “ale” A bar e.g. holding paper on a typewriter.
4 CO (O KING) UP
6 ANGLOPHILE (help in goal)* fan chosen, I expect, as goal in is the anagram fodder. Had to think a while to see if definition “England fan” is fair. I think it is – though an Anglophile will, I think, generally not be English he or she is, among other things, an admirer of things English and admirer = fan most certainly.
8 MAN FRIDAY (in farmyard)* less r Great misleading context by linking it with the previous clue to RANCHER.
9 MO(A)B From the Bible.
14 B(L)ANQUETTE L = large (clothes size) (in Concise OED)
15 (JACK S) Tumble RAW war< Superb double use of ratings = sailors and the surface reading comments on real events, of course, I guess.
16 SEA BREEZE “See Bries” Amusing surface.
25 Anwar SAD AT TA< Egyptian president, assassinated in 1981.
26 E (PI) C Definition “very good” Pi, a 1998 film – EC London postal district. (Answer right: explanation wrong – see Eimi’s note below)
Agreed – very good. Tougher than usual I thought.
13A – you have seen this before: here.
26D – I thought this was a tiny bit unfair as Pi was a somewhat obscure film, although I have seen it. I must have been going through an art-cinema phase at the time.
Well spotted. The racism in Big Brother idea is obviously irresistible, although I did check back and thought the wording sufficiently different.
With 26D, I can see how your interpretation works, but I read it as PI=very good in EC, the definition being “film”.
EPIC I’m very weak on films e.g. had never heard of Scarlett Johanssen who appeared the other day, though I did work it out from the wordplay once I had sufficient letters. So when EPIC puzzled me (and I did think of film as a possible definition), I looked at Internet Movie Database (what a site!). To my great surprise, a film named “Pi” came up. Knowing very little about films, I wrongly assumed it was well known. Eimi’s explanation (for which many thanks) is much better.