The Wednesday puzzle is usually one towards the more difficult end of the FT spectrum but not today (at least for me).
A sartorial theme for the across answers which are all items that can be worn. There was some misdirection in 15ac, and the ‘Highland festival’ in 1dn is perhaps a little obscure (I certainly hadn’t come across it before), but apart from that the anagrams, charades etc were rather obvious and didn’t provide much mental exercise.
On reflection however, whilst reviewing this post, ‘amice’ (11ac), ‘maniple’ (21ac) and perhaps ‘espadrille’ (23ac) might have been unfamiliar to those who hadn’t come across these words in previous puzzles. 11ac and 23ac could be readily obtained from the charade and anagram respectively but the dd for ‘maniple’ is possibly not all that well known.
Across
1 MITTEN MIT (with German) TEN (number)
4 HOT PANTS HOT (recently stolen) PANTS (rubbish)
10 DUNGAREES *(ASUNDER EG)
11 AMICE AMI (Nancy’s friend) CE (church) – Nancy being a town in France – a strip of fine linen, worn formerly on the head, now on the shoulders, by a priest at mass. Alternatively, a cloak or wrap.
12 CAPE dd
13 STRING VEST STRING (train) VEST[a] (short match)
15 MAE WEST M (male) EWE (sheep) in A ST (a road) – good misdirection because until the down answers had been entered it was easy to look for a garment containing ‘ram’ or ‘tup’.
16 GLOVES d&cd – a reference to ‘the gloves are off’ when an argument or fight starts to get serious.
19 T-SHIRT *(THIS) RT (right)
21 MANIPLE dd – a company of foot soldiers in the Roman army and (in the Western Christian Church) a clerical vestment used during the sacrament.
23 ESPADRILLE *(DISPEL REAL) – a rope-soled shoe
25 SOCK CO’S (company’s) reversed K (king)
27 PARKA PARK (leave the car) A
28 BALACLAVA BALA ((Welsh lake) C (caught) LAVA (material)
29 GALOSHES GAL (lass) *(SHOES)
30 BERETS *(B[eech] TREES)
Down
1 MODICUMS MOD (Highland festival) *(MUSIC)
2 TONE POEMS TONE (general character) POE (novelist) MS (manuscripts)
3 EXAM EX (once) AM (before noon)
5 OUSTING [j]OUSTING – ‘ejecting’ is doing double duty as both the definition and the removal indicator.
6 PLAYGROUND cd
7 NOISE N (Norway) OISE (river)
8 SHEETS *(THESES)
9 SEXTET SE (Home Counties) *(TEXT)
14 BEHIND BARS cd
17 ESPIONAGE *(ONE PAGE IS)
18 WEEKDAYS homophone of ‘weak daze’ (feeble bewilderment)
20 THIMBLE HIM (that fellow) in *(BELT)
21 MILDLY *(MD LILY)
22 SEA-PIG *(ESPI[on]AG[e])
24 PERIL PER (through) IL (state)
26 ACRE hidden in ‘cognAC REjected’
Thanks Gaufrid.
I was also far from being whelmed by this puzzle. Too many minor irritants along the way for my liking. In particular, 16A (don’t the metaphorical “gloves come off” once a spat starts to escalate – rather than when it starts?) and 22D (a ludicrously ugly surface, and technically flawed too; giving no indication that the subtraction needs to be disjointed).
I’ll confess to not being familiar with MANIPLE, but managed to guess correctly.
Thanks Gaufrid.
As you say, fairly easy puzzle today,even though some of the clue components were unfamiliar e.g. mod and bala.Guessed both answers and had to look up the components to verify – Brownie points to Gozo for that!
Top clue,by a long way,15 across.