It doesn’t look as if Smiffy is going to be able to join us today. He must be otherwise occupied, or his pc has crashed, so here is a brief analysis of today’s puzzle. In the interest of saving time (I want to get on with the Listener) there is no elaboration but if anything is unclear raise it in a comment and I will respond.
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Across
1 HECTORS *(TORE SCH[ool])
5 BUFFOON BUFF O ON
9 NASAL hidden in ‘prisoN AS ALarm’
10 ISOLATING *(ALTO) in I SING
11 SHORT FUSE SHORT F USE
12 TONNE N in TONE
13 PROMO PRO MO
15 ALLERGIST cd – only entered after dermatologist wouldn’t fit!
18 SOLICITOR SOL[eil] ICI TO R[edden] – ‘soleil ici’ = ‘sun here’ in French
19 RADAR cd
21 RIDGE [f]RIDGE
23 CONTRALTO A LT in CONTRO[l]
25 APARTMENT ART MEN in APT
26 UMBRA UMBR[i]A
27 SEALANT A LAN[e] in SET
28 ELEMENT EL EM EN T[hat]
Down
1 HANDS UP AND in PUSH reversed
2 CASTOR OIL *(ROAST) in COIL
3 OWLET alternate letters in ‘fOx WiLl EaT’
4 STIMULANT ALUM reversed in STINT
5 BROKE BROKE[r]
6 FLATTERER LATTER in REF reversed
7 ORION RIO in ON
8 NEGLECT dd
14 ORCHESTRA *(HORSE CART)
16 LORGNETTE L *(GET TENOR)
17 INDELIBLE DELI in *(BE[r]LIN)
18 SURPASS *(AS SPURS)
20 RIOT ACT *([d]ICTATOR)
22 DIANA NA in AID reversed
23 CLEFT C LEFT
24 ROUTE homophone of ‘root’
Excellent puzzle, tough to break into, then solving sped up as I got going. Agree with all the explanations above – O perhaps in 28 across = Oxygen (an element with symbol O)if I’ve read it right. Very imaginative idea, that.
Yes, I noted it that way. O immediately follows LMN and is also the chemical symbol for the element oxygen. As you say, a very clever clue.
Had I been preparing a full blog this would have been have been explained.
PS Thanks for the comment, you have just made me realise that, in my haste, I didn’t give the full breakdown for this clue. I will now rectify this.
I don’t get to solve my colleagues’ FT puzzles very often — but I loved this one. Whisked through it quickly but paused several times to admire good ways of handling dull words (eg NASAL). Thanks Viking!