Pleasant mid/easy puzzle – certainly much less work than the Don-Monster yesterday.
1 CA-LI-GULA
5 BOXCAR : Didn’t quite get the Spoonerism – “Rocks Cab ?”
9 PO-CHARD-S : had to look this up – these are indeed ducks
10 A-C-CORD
11 EC-STATIC : “EC” is the postcode range for the City of London.
12 CO(S)MIC : Sagan’s origin is “S” – nice clue
14 IM-MATERIAL : “I’m” is a reference to Orlando himself. It’s possibly misleading – surely “Orlando’s” should be “My” rather than “I’m” but it’s an often enough used construction in clues.
18 M-ON(T)E-VERDI
22 URANUS : didn’t get the wordplay
23 IR(RIG)ATE
24 A-P(EM)EN
25 WORKS(H)OP
26 Omitted on purpose
27 BE-R-LINER
1 COPPER-NICK-(c)EL(l) : used in coins. Note that “mineral” can loosely refer to anything that is neither animal nor vegetable : it doesn’t have to be an ore or similar.
2 LOCUST : a type of tree and an insect
3 GOA-WA(s)-Y
4 LUDWIG MIES VAN DER ROHE : Fortunately I was enough of a nerd to know there was an architect with this surname – but had to rely on the anagram to get the forename (DELIVERED WARM HOUSING)*
6 ON-C(E)OVER
7 Omitted on purpose
8 R(I-DIC)ULE
15 AM-BU(L-AN)T
16 IN CAME-RA
17 CERULEAN : Gorgeous word which I will find excuses to use often today – it’s a sky blue colour.
20 PATH-AN
21 PEPPER – reference to the “Sergeant Pepper” and the blow-your-socks-off chilli pepper called “Scotch Bonnet”
14A Instead of the possessive I think for the cryptic reading you are supposed to read “Orlando’s” as short for “Orlando is” hence I’M.
The Spoonerism is “cocks bar” for “lifts rail”.
URANUS – wordplay is (NAT)URA(LLY) + SUN reversed. Without wings = take the middle part.
Still don’t understand spoonerism of boxcar!
cox = cocks = lifts (think dog and leg); bar = rail