Some interesting clues this morning, and the left bottom corner gave me pause. 27d particularly troublesome.
ACROSS
1. CORNET – (c-or-net)
4. KEYBOARD – key board – cryptic definition. Board as in board and lodging)
9. ANNALS – ( a-n-n -alsO )
10. EAGLE EYE – (ea-glee-ye – old form of ‘you’)
12. PASTICHE – ( *its cheap)
13. FENDER – ( fen-<red. Fen is a unit of Chinese currency)
15. RUDE – homophone of ‘rued’.
16. ASCETIC – ( *ecstatic losing one ‘t’)
20. FILLIPS – ( homophone of [Prince] Philip’s.)
21. SPAR – (sp-E-ar)
25. RATTLE – ( rattleR – one who talks incessantly. To rattle someone is to cause upset.)
26. INSIGNIA – ( *signs in-i(NDIA)
28. FINE TUNE – (cryptic def.)
29. VIKING – (vi(P)-king )
30. RECORDER – ( re-c-order)
31. DIDDLE (dd. – to diddle is to toy with something,or to cheat )
DOWN
1. CLAPPERS – (c-l-appers)
2. RINGSIDE – (* desiring)
3. ECLAIR – (Claire with e moved to beginning)
5 ELAN – ( even letters of ‘deb learns’)
6. BULLETIN (bull-e-tin – a release as in ‘press release’.)
7. AMENDS – (amen-d-s)
8. DREARY- ( d-rear-y)
11. WHISTLE ( whist <el – not the wolf kind, obviously)
14. SERPENT -(,ser-pen-t – tres – French for very, around ‘pen’)
17. VIOLATOR – (viol-<rota – Don Giovanni, the infamous rake.)
18. OPEN MIND- cryptic def.)
19. TRIANGLE – ( * faltering without ‘f. I quite liked this alliterative clue)
22. PREFER – (p-ref-<re – to favour something)
23. ETHNIC -( eth-n-icS)
24. BIKINI( (bikinG-i)
27. ONCE- (on ice minus I- Thanks to Geoff for this answer.
27d is ONCE – on ice (reserves) with i removed.
I have FIDDLE for 31a and parsed 25a as [p]RATTLE since both of these are supported by Chambers.
As you say, some ‘interesting’ definitions in places!
Octofem,
Some clue numbers in the Across set need to be fixed.
I didn’t get on very well with this, though that may have been because I was trying to do three things at once!
An alternative suggestion for 25a – as the clue contained “endless”, and it clearly didn’t relate to the last letter of the answer, I took it to be (p)rattle(r), using gossip as a noun rather than a verb.
In 19ac ‘footloose’ could have been used instead of ‘footless’, I thought.
Sorry, I meant 19dn.
Rishi – thank you for pointing that out. I hadn’t noticed! I like your ‘footloose’ idea. I did post thanks to Geoff, but it seems to have vanished. The ‘prattler’ base for 25a seems to be favourite.
Enjoyable, quite tricky in places. Yes, I think it’s prattler as rattle and rattler are too similar. Think I’d prefer ‘footless’ to ‘footloose’ though – I think the former gives precise indication of deletion – the other is maybe making one word two.