As indicated, Smiffy is tied up with work so I will offer my blog instead (I hope I haven’t trodden on his toes!) because some potential solvers may be wondering why the clues do not match the grid.
Two grid errors and some consequential incorrect clue numbering do not help the solving process. There is an unrequired black square in both 2d and 7d which needs to be removed and then either the grid numbering or the clue numbering corrected accordingly. I have indicated the clue numbers associated with the grid in the following blog, with the ones given in the actual clues shown in brackets.
Across
1 LOONIEST LOO (little room) I (one) in NEST (house) – ‘house’ as an indicator for ‘nest’ is stretching things a little in my opinion
5 FRACAS FR (father) ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service)
9 AGERATUM AG (silver) *(MATURE)
10 USANCE USA (America) N[i]CE (good) – the time allowed for payment of foreign bills of exchange
12 TENSE TENS (decades) E[legance] – definition ‘past’
13 COMMINUTE IN (at home) in COMMUTE (regular work journey) – to break into minute particles or fragments
14 SEVERN R (runs) in SEVEN (number of seas) – an English river
16 TRADE-IN *(TRAINED)
19 (18) AMAZING A MA (mother) ZING (energy)
21 (20) ONEIDA ONE (a particular) IDA (princess) – Princess Ida, a Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera. ‘Oneida’ (not in Chambers but in COED and Collins) is an extinct Iroquoian (American Indian) language.
23 (22) ARC SECOND A RC (catholic) SECOND (support) – a unit of angular measurement equal to 1/3600 of a degree so not really ‘part of a circle’
25 (23) SCRIP dd
26 (24) CLOUTS LOUT (undesirable type) in CS (Civil Service)
27 (25) BREAD BIN cd
28 (26) STYLED STY (dirty home) LED (was first)
29 (27) EYEPIECE homophone of I PIECE
Down
1 LEAN-TO hidden in ‘unsociabLE ANTOny’
2 ODE ON MELANCHOLY *(HONEYMOON CALLED) – from the pen of John Keats
3 IRATE [p]IRATE (rover) – a poor definition, ‘irate’ relates to ‘anger’ rather than ‘frenzy’
4 SOUPCON SOUP (item on the menu) CON (study)
6 RUSTICATE U (university) in *(SCATTIER) – ‘rusticate’ is to banish from university for a time because of wrongdoing
7 CONSUMER DURABLE *(CRUDE MENS LABOUR)
8 SHEBEENS SHE (the woman) B (bishop) *(SEEN) – illicit liquor shops so not really ‘drinking dens’
11 EMIT EMI (record company) T (time)
15 EPICENTRE cd
18 (17) DAMASCUS DAM (mother) CU (copper) in ASS (donkey)
20 (19) GROG GROG[ram] – ‘grogram’ is a kind of coarse cloth of silk and mohair
21 (20) ORDERLY ED (man) reversed in *(LORRY)
22 (21) SPONGE cd
25 (23) SCAMP S[poil] CAMP
Gaufrid, you have done very well with this.
I started the crossword but had neither the time nor the patience to correct/finish it.
Well done!
Thanks James. Time is one thing of which I have plenty but it didn’t take that long to work out what needed to be changed.
Geoff, thanks so much for bailing me out. I owe you one.
I didn’t get around to sitting down with this until after 5:00pm local time, and my heart did sink a little when I encountered the misnumerations (at this point I’m close to convincing myself that today really is Friday the 13th, not the 12th!).
Still, I got there in the end. Actually, not quite – as it turns out that I ended up guessing wrongly at AGETARUM for 9A…
Cheers again,
Smiffy