A well-balanced mix of tractability and trickiness . I came unstuck in the SW quadrant, due to an over-impulsive stab at 17D, but overall the answers manifested themselves at a satisfyingly steady and consistent pace. Leaving me ample time to devote to celebrating St Gondulphus of Berry’s feast day.
Across
1 WILDFOWL – wild + f + owl.
5 TWELVE – t + we + l + v(iz) + {hous}E.
9 SINFULLY – (silly fun)*.
10 FRINGE – ring in Fe.
11 BARONESS – (r + on) in (bases)*. When it comes to the ‘peer’ group, I always seem to forget about baronesses. At least, on this occasion, it wasn’t, erm, caught short by the other more cryptic usage.
12 FRUSTA – (surf)< + ta. These are “slices of bodies” in the geometric sense.
14 GO FOR BROKE – R in (forge book)*. One could quibble about the arm’s-length anagrind, perhaps.
18 ARITHMETIC – (term t’ai chi)*. The definition and anagram fodder segue together neatly, via ‘summer term’.
22 BATHOS – Bath (erstwhile Aquae Sulis) + (so)<.
23 BONA FIDE – (naf{f} + I{nvective}) in bode.
24 DAINTY – NT replacing L in daily (e.g. the FT).
25 HESITATE – (ties)* in hate.
26 SKEWER – w in (reeks)<. My initial error at 17D led to hold-ups here – trying to justify SCENTS to fit the checkers of S_E_T_.
27 RAP SHEET – (a PS) in (three)*. Given my struggles over the preceding clue, I was excessively misled by the use of ‘previous’ to denote a criminal record (rather than as a cross-reference to 26).
Down
1 WASABI – hidden; and an embarrassingly elusive one for me, to boot.
2 LINERS – double def’n.
3 FLUENT – ‘flu + ENT (Ear/Nose/Throat).
4 WELL-SPOKEN – wells + ok in pen. Very economical.
6 WARDROBE – ward + (Ebor)<. More Roman-era municipal activity. York = Eboracum (which lives on in the Ebor horse race).
7 LONG SHOT – L{inger} + (snog)* + hot.
8 ELEVATED – (E + V) in elated.
13 COMIC OPERA – Co + mi + cop + era.
15 BARBADOS – barb + ados. A ‘fluke’ is the barbed part of a harpoon, or similar.
16 DIATRIBE – (aid)< + tribe. Despite my wishful imagination, it would appear that ‘Philippic’ refers to Philip II of Macedon (by way of Demosthenes), rather than deriving from the Duke of Edinburgh.
17 THROTTLE – double def’n. I got into problems by putting in RHEOSTAT here, despite that rendering the clue highly ungrammatical. Took a while to repair the damage.
19 RADIOS – {enginee}R + adios.
20 PIRATE – {shi}P + I rate. A valid &lit, but one that just seems to lack a little va-va-voom.
21 REPEAT – re: peat.
I have always thought Jason is easy meat until today. Finished all the clues in extra quick time and then there were four stubborn clues in the lower left hand corner. I learned that bard is fluke (Chambers3) and there is such a word as BATHOS. The “heart of kebab” got me trying in vain to form a word with the letter b (middle of keBab). In the end, it was the insertion of W (with) in reversal of REEKS (smells) for SKEWER
Well done Jason, you got my knickers in a twist for a while.
Thank you, Smiffy for a good blog
Great puzzle and great blog. I thought there were quite a few clues to savour in this, WILDFOWL, SINFULLY, ARITHMETIC (my favourite), SKEWER, RAP SHEET, LONG SHOT, RADIOS, REPEAT (this was my last answer).