Apologies for the late-ish blog. I was hoping to do this last night before going to bed but the puzzle was not posted on the website at the usual time.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | FAREWELL FARE (food) + WELL (good) |
| 5 | USURER USURPER minus the “p” |
| 9 | DECADENT AD (publicity) has DECENT (suitable) without |
| 10 | HOLMES L (sinister, the Latin word) in HOMES |
| 12 | RAISE CAIN dd |
| 13 | NADIR *(DRAIN) |
| 14 | FLEE L (sovereign as in pound) in FEE (charge) |
| 16 | GARBAGE B (bishop) in GARAGE (lockup) |
| 19 | REIGNED RESIGNED (stoical) minus the S. “Holy man” in puzzles more commonly denotes ST |
| 21 | MOLE dd |
| 24 | GUSTO hidden in anGUS TOuchily |
| 25 | RESONANCE *(ON A SCREEN) |
| 27 | EGRESS [r]EGRESS |
| 28 | MANGROVE MAN (island) + GROVE (plantation) |
| 29 | THEBES THE (article) + BES[t] (chief) Unbeknownst to me, there was an Egyptian Thebes in addition to the more well-known Grecian one |
| 30 | AESTHETE *(ATE THESE) |
| Down | |
| 1 | FEDORA O (old) RA (artist) under (“bearing up”) FED (ate) |
| 2 | RECOIL RE (touching) + SNAKE (coil) |
| 3 | WEDGE WED (join) GE (earth goddess) Ge, also spelled Gaea, was the mother of Cronus and the Titans in Greek mythology |
| 4 | LINEAGE LINE (row) AGE (a long period) |
| 6 | SCOUNDREL *(DON ULCERS) |
| 7 | REMEDIAL R.E. (Royal Engineer) M.E. (Mechanical Engineer) DIAL (call up) |
| 8 | RESERVED R.E. again (this time identified as a “soldier”) SERVED (made do) |
| 11 | SNUG Reversal of GUNS. The lion who is not in fact a lion in Midsummer’s Night Dream |
| 15 | LANGOUSTE G (good) OUST (throw out) in LANE (alley) |
| 17 | FRAGMENT RAG (ridicule) MEN (people) in FT |
| 18 | DIES IRAE *(I DESIRE A) |
| 20 | DIRK D (penny, formerly) IRK (trouble) |
| 21 | MISTAKE IST (first) in MAKE (model) |
| 22 | INCOME IN + COME (advance) |
| 23 | DELETE LET (as in “without let or hindrance”) in DEE (surely the most common crossword river) |
| 26 | NIGHT homophone of KNIGHT (cavalier) |
Hi Agentzero
7d – Your parsing works but it could also be REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers). This would avoid the use of RE in consecutive clues.
Thanks, Geoff, I wasn’t aware of that abbreviation. No doubt that was what was meant.