A rapid-fire, skeletal posting for now as I’m won’t have any more free time for the next several hours. At least this leaves the stage clear for others to opine until I can return to flesh things out..
Across
1 RES(TRAIN)T
6 DEP(O)T
9 BO(U)NDED – what a surface!
10 B(ROOD)ED
11 DAC,H,A – (cad)rev
12 PE(RE,NNI)AL – (inn)rev
14 PUN[-y]
15 PENALTY AREA
17 N(ONE)THELESS – (St Helens)*
19 RYE – centre of ‘Dryer” (=roller towel)
20 TIT(FORT)A,T – (At it)rev
22 ENSUE – ensure -r
24 ILLNESS – silliness -s and i. I originally put in{s}anity here, without the benefit of any checking letters
26 WE’D,DING
27 EXTRA – hidden
28 DOLLY BIRD – anag
Down
1RA(B)ID
2 SO(U,PC)ON
3 RE(DC)AR,PET
4 IN,D,E,PEN,DENT
5 TUB – tuba -a
6 D(ROW)N
7 PODGIER – (porridge)* – r
8 TI(DA)L WAVE – (we vital)*
13 ROL(L)ER TOWEL – (Orwell wrote)* – w
14 PINS,TRIPE – (nips)rev
16 YESTERDA,Y – (star eyed)*. Factoid alert: Cumulatively, the most played song in the history of radio globally (reputedly).
18 NO(TE)LET – Haven’t checked this thoroughly. Is it missing an overall reversal indicator?
19 ROSSINI – (imprisons)* -MP
21OPERA – hidden
23E(GG)ED – (Dee)rev
25 SAD – said – i
18dn: LET ON reversed [about] + ET, that familiar alien.
22ac: I read it as ENSU[R]E, with ‘guarantee’ as a verb.
Help! How does “opening in recession” lead to ROOD? And if it just signifies R, whence the OOD?
Agentzero
DOOR (opening) reversed (in recession)
Ahhh…thanks, Geoff.
That was one of those instances in which your brain locks onto a particular interpretation (opening in recession = first letter in “recession” = R) and won’t let go.
I’d say that was deliberately misleading in what was an excellent puzzle, fairly hard by FT standards. Similarly ‘1 down’ in 26 down led me astray for ages. Favourite clue: PENALTY AREA with the double use of ‘trip’.
Yes, I forgot to say what a good puzzle it was. I had SOUPCON for a few minutes before I could parse it: ‘don’ was an unusual insertion indicator and made a nice surface. The clue for 3dn could have been much more mundane, too.