Straightforward stuff today, with a mini-theme of furniture. Many cryptic and double definitions but none that truly sparkled. 20d stood out for its cleverly positioned hyphen at line-break.
Across
1 SCHOOL cd
4 AGAR-AGAR A RAG (newspaper) reversed, twice. The surface doesn’t make much sense.
10 ESPARTO (SEAPORT)*
11 RECITAL (ARTICLE)*
12 ABLE CAPABLE – CAP
13 REFERENCES dd
16 ORWELL OR WELL (source of gold)
17 PINTAIL PINTA (bottle of milk. This had me puzzled, Wikipedia tells me that this is a way of spelling ‘pint of’, as in ‘a pinta milk a day’) I L (left).
20 NIRVANA VAN (vehicle) in (RAIN)*. The definition needs at least a capitalized ‘State’ to be sufficient, but I like how the neatly split ‘rain-storm’ quells any objections that ‘rainstorm’ might have raised.
21 GOSPEL EPs (records) in LOG (chart), all reversed
24 GREENHOUSE GROUSE (complain), around E (earth) and (HEN)*
25 SNUB (BUNS)<
27 INSULIN INSUL[ar] (not wholly prejudiced) IN (because of). // Update: Thanks, Gaufrid.
29 ALI BABA sounds like ‘alley barber’
30 MINISTER I in MINSTER (church) &lit. // Update: Anno. changed. Thanks, Rishi.
31 FLEECE FLEE (run away) CE (church)
Down
1 SHERATON (NORTH SEA)*
2 HEPPLEWHITE (HELP WIPE THE)*. Not sure why clues 1d and 2d are linked with 4 dots instead of 3, which is the norm for ellipsis.
3 OARS BOARS (pigs) – B
5 GARDENIA (DRAINAGE)*
6 RECREATION RE (about) CREATION (oratorio)
7 GUT cd
8 RELISH dd but not quite, both meanings are nearly the same.
9 TOKEN Got this from ‘keepsake’. What is the Livingstone connection? Help welcome. // Update: TO KEN = for Livingstone, as in Ken Livingstone ex mayor of London. Thanks, Tony.
14 CHIPPENDALE (HELP PAD NICE)*
15 ELEVEN-PLUS ELEVEN (cricket team) PLUS (and)
18 ANNOUNCE ANN (girl) OUNCE (weight)
19 SLAB CAKE (BLACK SEA)*
22 EGOISM (ME IS GO)*
23 ISLAY I (one) S (small) LAY (ballad)
26 MILL cd
28 SON (NO.’S)<-
I think 9d is TO KEN = FOR LIVINGSTONE, as in Ken Livingstone ex mayor of London.
Hi Shuchi
I had 11ac as *(ARTICLE) rather than dd and 15dn as ELEVEN (cricket team) PLUS (and) again instead of your indicated dd.
In 27ac, as you say, it is INSUL[ar} IN, the ‘in’ being given by ‘because of’ (see Chambers).
And 30ac, I would think is &lit or “all in one” rather than a CD.
Re 17ac, those of a certain age will remember “Drinka pinta milka day”, which was an advertising slogan widely used by the Milk Marketing Board in (I think) the 1960s.
4ac seems to make perfect sense, A (RAG)< twice. I read 30ac as I (one) in MINSTER (church).
Thanks for your comments. I’ve made updates to include them in the main post.
@Richard: you’re right about 30ac. Re: 4ac, my comment was about the surface meaning of ‘Twice, a newspaper brought back jelly’, which doesn’t seem to make sense if I don’t read like a cryptic clue.
Thanks Shuchi. I thought 20a was very cute indeed; it’s rare that I laugh out loud when cracking a clue.
Here are two others that did. One from the FT in August or September 2007: “Semibalding ‘usband might vanish into … ? (3, 4)” Alas, I don’t remember the setter.
The other was in the Times of India over 20 years ago: “Express disgust over bad weather in the gulf (7).” I think, but am not sure, that the ToI used to republish the FT crossword at that point. The setters weren’t named.