Nothing too tough here, except that the explanation for 3 down eludes me. 5 down was amusing, and many of the clues had fine surfaces.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | MARSHLANDS MARS (alien planet) H (hard) LANDS (touches down) |
| 7 | BUST dd |
| 9 | GAME MEGA (fantastic) with the first and last halves switched |
| 10 | MEMBERSHIP MEMBERS (legs) HIP (joint) |
| 11 | MIASMA ASM (air-to-surface missile) in MIA (missing in action) |
| 12 | NARRATOR RAN reversed + RAT (traitor) OR |
| 13 | WEBSITES *(WISE BETS) |
| 15 | OPEC OP (work) EC (City) |
| 17 | BAAL BAA (make sheepish noise) L (front of Lucifer) |
| 19 | NUISANCE hidden in parveNU IS ANCEstral |
| 22 | SMIDGENS *(MESSING + D[ead]) |
| 23 | TEA SET TEASE (rag) T[ime] |
| 25 | PARAPHRASE PARA (soldier) PHRASE (homophone of FRAYS (unravels)) |
| 26 | TRIG dd; TRIG[onometry] |
| 27 | ODDS OD (excessive drug use) DS (detective sergeant, so police officer) |
| 28 | WIDE-SCREEN CR (credit) in WIDE (extra) SEEN (viewed) |
| Down | |
| 2 | AVARICE *(CAVIARE) |
| 3 | STETS I’m unsure about this one, but can’t think of what else fits Thanks, Gaufrid: this is STETS[on] (the hat, with “off” = “not ‘on'”) |
| 4 | LAMBASTE LAM[b] (carve end off meat) BASTE (pour over juices) |
| 5 | NO MAN IS AN ISLAND d&cd. Is Man a peninsula? “No, Man is an island.” Chuckled at this. |
| 6 | SWEARS S[uccess] WEARS 9causes friction) |
| 7 | BOSSA NOVA BOSS (manage) A NOVA (star) |
| 8 | SKI POLE SKIP (bound) OLE (encouraging word); the definition is “support on the run” |
| 14 | SALAD DAYS d&cd |
| 16 | DISTRESS IST (first) in DRESS (women’s clothing). Like the surface here! |
| 18 | ARMBAND ARM (distribute weapons) BAND (corps) |
| 20 | CHEMISE CHEMIST (scientist) substituting E[nergy] for T[ime] |
| 21 | NEPHEW P (quietly) HE in NEW (young) |
| 24 | ATTAR AT (about) TAR (contaminate) |
Hi Agentzero
I too had SHEDS for a while at 3dn but also couldn’t justify it. The answer is STETS. The wordplay is STETS[on] (hat off, with ‘off’ being read as ‘not on’) and ‘stet’ is an instruction not to delete something previously indicated for deletion, in other words ‘leave’.
Thanks, Gaufrid. That’s quite clever. I’ll fix the blog.