Financial Times 12892 / Highlander

Just a glance at the clues and I realised that, as one coming after weekend and prize puzzles, this crossword is a piece of cake.

So I adopted a different approach to my blog today. First I solved all the Across clues – with no help from the crossings of Down clues.

Next I didn’t read the Down set of clues at all but proceeded to have my own fills/guesses. Only half-a-dozen of these had to be revised in the light of the published clues.

Across

1 LOUNGE – two def. – room / to sit – prob. also straightforward “Room to sit [in]”
4 BRACELET – brace, let
10 FLATTERED – flatter, ed.
11 NOOSE – rev. of ‘soon’ plus E
12 OPAL – op, a, l
13 CAPITULATE – anag. of ‘up’, ‘late’ and ‘cat I’ – unusual anag. signal in “originally”
15 ENHANCE – anag. of ‘hence an’
16 HITMAN – hit, man
19 ADMIRE – anag. of ‘I dream’
21 BENEFIT – anag. of ‘been’ plus fit
23 ABORIGINAL – a, b, original
25 BUST – two def. – broken / statue
27 COBRA – co, bra
28 EYEOPENER – eye (v.), opener
29 ENTREATY – E, N, treaty
30 STRESS – s, tress

Down

1 LEFTOVER – left, over
2 UNABASHED – Una, bashed
3 GATE – two def., prob. also straightforward
5 REDDISH – red, dish
6 CONSULTANT – Con., sultan, t
7 LOOFA – a, rev. of ‘fool’
8 TIERED – tie, red
9 CREATE – cre(a)te
14 INTIMIDATE – Anag. of ‘Tim and I tie’
17 AFFLUENCE – Anag. of ‘Naff clue’ plus E – naff = (slang) worthless, esp. in style or taste (Chambers) :: See also ‘naff all’ and ‘naff off’
18 STATURES – stat(r)es :: As the ans. to 25 ac is BUST, the use of ‘busts’ here might have been avoided
20 EMINENT – anag. of ‘mine’ plus anag. of ‘net’
21 BRAKES – homophone of ‘breaks’
22 GAUCHE – anag. of ‘hag: cue’
24 ORBIT – or, bit
26 SPOT – two def. – notice (v.) / blemish (n.)