I heard a short while ago that Agentzero cannot make it today so here is the clue analysis. There is only limited commentary because I am very pressed for time as I have to go out shortly. Help required with 4dn and there may be a better explanation for 11ac and 15dn.
Across
1 DIATRIBE AID (support) reversed TRIBE (group)
5 THESIS THES[p] (short actor) IS
10 LOURDES *(LURED SO)
11 IMBIBER three defs – I assume ‘one who keeps tumbler in hand’ is intended as a third definition since I cannot see it being wordplay.
12 DWELL [her]D WELL (comfortably)
13 DICKY-BIRD *(RICK DID BY)
14 INSTRUMENTAL N (noon) in *(LET NATURISM)
18 JOINT VENTURE JOINT (union) VENTURE (put forward)
21 CUT-THROAT dd – the second referring to “a modification of bridge, etc for three players, each playing alone”.
23 NOISE I in NOSE (hooter)
24 ITALIAN *(A LATIN I)
25 RUBBISH RUB (difficulty) BISH (blunder)
26 NOTATE NO TATE (lack of art gallery)
27 ASSYRIAN ASS (behind) *(AIRY) N (name)
Down
1 DELUDE E (English) L (lake) in DUDE (geezer)
2 ACUMEN A CU (copper) MEN (people)
3 RED PLANET RED (bloody) PLAN (sketch) ET (extraterrestrial)
4 BESIDE THE POINT I don’t see how the ‘where to find capital’ fits in and I haven’t time to research it. I did consider that ‘point’ might be referring to a full stop at the end of a sentence and the subsequent letter would then be a ‘capital’ but in reality, assuming no typing errors, the capital letter would be ‘beside a space’.
6 HUBBY HUB (boss) BY (at hand) – presumably this is intended as an &lit but it is rather sexist and definately untrue in my experience.
7 SOBRIETY *(YOB TRIES)
8 STRADDLE homophone of strad (expensive violin) ‘ll
9 DISCOUNT STORES *(REDUCTIONS SO [cu]ST[om])
15 ERRAND BOY ERR (mess up) AND (with) BOY (lad) – is there a saying involving ‘get the greens’ of which I am unaware? If not it could just as easily have been another commodity.
16 EJECTION [d]EJECTION (melancholy when leader’s gone)
17 DISTRACT DI’S (senior policeman’s) TRACT (sermon)
19 BIKINI hidden reversal in ‘whereIN I KIBoshed’
20 PEAHEN PE (exercises) A HEN (broody sitter)
22 HOIST jOIST (support) with initial letter changed to H (hot) – ‘is hot’ being an anagram could have been confusing.
Thanks, Gaufrid.
I can’t really add anything to your musings on your problems but, considering the weakness of some of the other clues, I think there’s probably not much more to find. A ‘thesp’ is already ‘a short actor’, being an abbreviation of thespian [I see Chambers – alone – gives it as a word in its own right] so ‘thes’ is a very short actor!
In 20dn, I thought using ‘a hen’ to clue ‘peahen’ was very poor.
And ‘easily to’ as an anagram indicator?
Re 4dn: I did take ‘the point’ as meaning ‘full stop’ and don’t see any problem with there being a space. There usually is a space between two things that are beside each other!
Re 15dn, I don’t know, nor can find, any such expression, so I think ‘greens’ must have been chosen, as having a range of meanings, in order to mislead.
In spite of the reservations mentioned, I did like 9dn.
Hi Eileen
Sorry but I don’t understand your comment about 20dn, ‘a hen’ wasn’t used in the clue it was ‘a broody sitter?’ which I think is sufficiently cryptic.
I originally typed THES[pian] but then decided that ‘short’ to indicate ‘half of’ didn’t really work so as Chambers only has ‘thesp’ it in its own right, and not as an abbreviation (Collins and COED do not list it as an abbreviation either), I decided that it fitted the clue better.
For the anagram indicator in 10ac I went down the path easily-yieldingly-compliantly-flexibly which seemed to work, at least for me.
I take your point about things being able to have a space between them but can still considered to be beside each other. I was being too analytical because I would have said that the full stop was beside the last letter of the sentence.
Re 20dn
Apologies, Gaufrid, I worded my comment badly. ‘Peahen’ and ‘hen’ are too closely associated: a peahen could, itself, be ‘a broody sitter’.
4D You can analyse a clue to death and miss completely the fun element in this cd. I got this answer immediately and had a good laugh.
9D This is such a superb &lit anagram clue which did not get proper credit from the blogger
15D The ? at the end should be enough to answer Gaufrid’s misgiving about what exactly was being delivered.
I felt that overall, this is one of Jason’s better efforts, inadequately reflected in Gaufrid’s comments.
Uncle Yap: Gaufrid says in the preamble that he had to step in at the last minute, was short of time and even added a disclaimer to say there was limited commentary!