The crossword however was a joy, even though I came to grief in the top left corner.
ACROSS
1 SULP-HATE – I didn’t get this one, but Eileen did << …SULP rev plus [’and’] and HATE ‘be repelled’”>>
5 FLOWER – you usually get river = “one that flows” = flower rather than the other way round
9 Omitted on purpose – simple anagram
10 HAR(e)ASS
13 BEN-JO-NS-ON : OK, a Ben is a mountain and NS are Bridge partners, and Ben Jonson is undeniably a dramatist, but I wasn’t sure of the rest until Eileen pointed out JO(b)
14 TO(HE)LL-WITH IT : Perfect
18 C(LOSE-HARM)ONY : A Cony is an old word for rabbit (also slang for a lady’s front-bottom, incidentally) – “barbershop” is a singing style
21 SA(NAN)GE-LO(af) : Not the most famous Texas city, but clear from the wordplay
24 E.G-O(IS)M : OM = Order of Merit
26 TIDDLY WINKS : Again, perfection.
27 B-OT-SWAN-A : Shakespeare = “the swan of Avon”
DOWN
1 SCREWY – like a screw as well as being quite, quite mad <<kudos is due to conradcork for saving me>>
2 LO(SIN)G
3 HOROSCOPE – any reference to periscopes in war movies is due to a simple case delirium on the part of this blogger. “Signs” as in “zodiac”.
4 T-ROUBLEMAKER – groan !
6 LLA-NO : “ON ALL” in reverse – a South American plain
7 WHATS THE POINT : (WHITE HOT PANTS)* – yet again, perfection.
8 Omitted on purpose – it’s hidden in the words of the clue
11 O-NE(LUM-PORT)W-O : Wonderful
15 INN-A-P-PIES
16 ICE SHEET : (EEE THIS C)*
17 DOWN-LOAD
19 MINIM-A
20 STIG-MA : Reference to the children’s book “Stig of the Dump”
22 N.A.S.A-L
I had HOROSCOPE for 3dn which gave me SULPHATE [salt]for 1ac SULP rev plus [‘and’] and HATE ‘be repelled’
13ac I thought ‘work shortly’ must be JO[b]
… and Ben is a peak.
1 down. Screwy, both nuts and like other fasteners.
Thanks, Conradcork. I had SCREWS, too and couldn’t explain it. Should have remembered Paul’s recent ‘apply’ [‘like fruit’]
PS It was Ben Jonson who called Shakespeare the ‘Swan of Avon’, so that’s quite neat.
Shame he took all those drugs to improve his sprinting though …
Thanks all for the rescue … “Up Periscope” was the result of desperation, serious sleep-deprivation and early-morning motoring.
Great crossword, with some lovely clues and amusing phrases as solutions.
I also found the top left quadrant the hardest, but (as a chemist) kicked myself when I finally spotted SULPHATE. Incidentally, although this spelling is still widely used, the (British) Royal Society of Chemistry advises the spellings SULFUR, SULFATE etc. Not simply to follow American usage, but because the PH spelling is a medieval affectation – the etymology is direct from the Classical Latin for ‘brimstone’ which is usually ‘sulfur’ but occasionally ‘sulpur’ (no H).
SULPHATE (and before that HOROSCOPE) was (were) my last entries too, some time after the rest. I thought the clue to SULPHATE was brilliant.
I was completely stumped by 27A, even though I knew it had to be Botswana. But now I see “OT” = Old Testament. Doh!
Found this page on crossword abbreviations very useful by the way.