Only one potential slice of esotericum (at 28A, one of those “you either know it or you don’t” answers) as far as I could discern. Overall, this one didn’t really float my boat – but perhaps that’s more a case of my own Plimsoll line having become a tad decalibrated.
Across
1 ARCHIVE – (chair)* + ve{nues}.
5 BACKLOG – (a + c{ler}k) in blog.
9 GRASS – R(oyal) in gas + S. Recent Nobel Laureate Gunter Grass; the atypcial/hybrid treatment of ‘royal society’ was a neat touch.
10 CATERWAUL – cryptic def’n.
11 INFANTILE – in + fan + tile. Now, I wonder why would this surface reading would make me thing of “Mr Portsmouth“?
12 ABATE – a + homophone of “bait”.
13 HINDI – hidden.
15 ARBITRARY – a + (bit in RR) + a Ry. Not particularly whelmed by ‘brief time’ = bit, although I have heard people say “See you in a bit”, so I suppose it’s local/colloquial.
18 DEHYDRATE – (earth Eddy)*.
19 SOMME – M in some.
21 AUDEN – a + U + den. I know that the government is committed to raising the legal age of retirement, but shouldn’t this clue have been pensioned off by now?
23 TAKE ISSUE – (a + k{eepsak}e) in tissue.
25 SHIPSHAPE – hip in (phases)*.
26 PRIDE – PR + ide{a}.
27 THERAPY – the rap + Y.
28 KILVERT – (Rev)< in kilt. I learned of this chap only a few months ago, when he cropped up in a Times puzzle.
Down
1 ANGUISH – {l}anguish. Entered without understanding the wordplay, so subsequently ended up trying to justify something from anagramming ‘causing’ minus the c (‘initially cleared’)….
2 CHAFFINCH – (a f + fin) in Ch x2
3 IBSEN – BSE in in.
4 ENCHILADA – Ch in (Neil)* + Ada.
5 BATHE – hidden.
6 CERVANTES – van in (Secret)*.
7 LHASA – l + has + A(fternoon).
8 GALLERY – r in galley.
14 INDONESIA – one’s in India. If you don’t know me by now, then you’ll never, never know me…oooooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ohh.
16 BREAKNECK – Homophone of “brake” + neck.
17 ARMISTICE – (It’s a crime)*.
18 DEAD-SET – Sporting pun.
20 EVEREST – eve + rest.
22 DRIVE – double def’n.
23 TEARY – {t}ea{m} in try.
24 IMPEL– imp + e{asy} l{iving}. ‘Young offender’ for imp struck me as a little harsh, rather than a little wry.
smiffy
The typo in the answer to 16d needs to be fixed.
Thanks Rishi. In my defence, the tool-bar that contains the spell-check facility was mysteriously absent when I posted the blog, so I had to go through and manually scour the numerous original typos! Back in business now, thankfully.
I found this quite easy by FT standards, did have to think quite a bit about 22D, before coming to the same conclusion as you that it was DRIVE and a double definition. Esp liked CATERWAUL, KILVERT (was familiar with him all right so that may have helped), GALLERY, BREAKNECK.
Thanks smiffy and sorry to hear of your decalibrated Plimsoll line – sounds painful. 🙂
I found this easier than recent puzzles from Sleuth but an enjoyable solve nonetheless.
FIN meaning bill was new to me – American slang is not my strong point.
Top clues for me,1 and 6 down.