Guardian 24615 / Rover – Fifteensquared

A mixture of very easy clues and some that are rather tricky to explain. I’m slightly doubtful about my explanations for 11a, 12a and could do with some suggestions for 28a and 20d. Update: Thanks to everyone’s suggestions, I think we have satisfactory interpretations of all of these now.

Across
1.	BALANCE	Cryptic definition: a “scruple” is a weight used by an apothecary
5.	SMUGGLE	GG = “horse” in (MULE)*
10.	WEEP	WEE = “small” + P = “prince”
11.	BREADBOARD	Cryptic definition; banks deal with money (“bread”) and a director would be on the board
12,13.	LOVE-IN-IDLENESS	Another name for the the pansy (so “It’s pretty to behold”) and ~~I guess that a LOVE-IN is about Platonic love, so might be “what Platonic friends discuss” followed by IDLENESS = “leisure”~~. (I think the flower is best known from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.) Update: Geoff suggests a better explanation: Plato’s “Symposium” is a discussion of love among a group of friends, so that gives LOVE with IN IDLENESS = “at leisure”
14.	ADVANTAGE	Cryptic definition; at advantage you have an edge over your opponent in tennis
16.	FIRST	FIRS + [fores]T
17.	TIGHT	Double definition; the second is “tight” meaning “drunk”. According to Chambers “blind” can mean “extremely drunk” on its own, although I’m not sure I’ve heard it except in the phrase “blind drunk”
19.	CARDIGANS	(CIGARS AND)*; cardigans don’t always have pockets, though, do they?
23.	FIENDISH	(FINE)* + DISH
24.	CEDARS	(SCARED)*
26.	MISALIGNED	(SAILING)* in MED
27.	EROS	(ROSE)*
28.	CLASSES	Double definition? ~~I’m not sure how “almost general” works~~ Thanks to brisbanegirl for putting us on the right track here: “almost general” is “genera” which are classes in the Linnaean taxonomy (and in other senses…)
29.	PROMISE	Double definition
Down
2.	ANEROID	ANE = “A Scottish” + DIOR reversed; ANEROID means “without liquid”, but is most often used in the context of an aneroid barometer, where the liquid it would be without is mercury. (I think this could do with a “perhaps” or “for example” at the end.)
3.	APPLE	Refers to New York being “The Big Apple”
4.	CABINET	Cryptic definition
6.	MIDDLE	Double definition
7.	GROUNDING	Refers to the punishment of being grounded
8.	LYRISTS	Double definition; lyre players and a lyric poet – I hadn’t heard the latter meaning before
9.	SEWING MACHINE	Singer is often credited with inventing the sewing machine, but apparently this is incorrect. The homonym is for “sowing machine”, e.g. a seed drill
15.	ATHENIANS	(ASIAN THEN)* – the ATHENIANS won the Battle of Marathon
18.	INITIAL	Double definition
20.	DECODER	~~Is there an error in this clue? I think it should be COD = “fish” in DER = “The German” but I’m not sure where the extra E comes from…~~ With some Googling (thanks to Manehi’s suggestion) I think this must be CODE = fish (a cipher used in WWII) in DER = “The German”
21.	NARROWS	N + ARROWS
22.	DIVINE	VIN = “wine” in DIE = “decline”
25.	DREAM	Refers to Martin Luther King‘s speech