I seem to have managed to complete this with barely a scribble or a note on the paper, so I assume it must have been fairly smooth going.
That said, 10 and 24 required a search of Chambers to finish things off, and I’ve yet to explain the latter. My parsing of 28 feels a little shaky too.
* = anag, [] = dropped, < = reversed
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | FINE DRAW – FINED +RAW. |
| 7 | ATOM – A + MOTE[e]<. |
| 10 | LAOCOON – LAO + COON. |
| 12 | ANTIBURGHER – A + (H in (ERRING BUT)**. |
| 13 | SKIO – OIKS<. |
| 14 | OGLING – [go]OGLING. |
| 15 | KANPUR – UP< in RANK*. |
| 17 | ULEX – ULE + X. |
| 19 | MAESTOSO – (A in ME) + (T in SO-SO). |
| 21 | TEAR INTO – (NOT IRATE)*. |
| 23 | URSA – [o]URSA[tellite]. |
| 24 | TENAIL – Join pieces of wood, nothing less, for fortification. |
| 25 | ORISON – Roy OR[b]ISON. |
| 27 | OTIS – [patri]OTIS[m]. The Otis family appears to have included many politicians, and also the elevator chap. |
| 28 | DIVINE RIGHT – DIVINER + [t]IGHT, I think. |
| 29 | PEREION – PER + (I in EON). |
| 30 | SERE – R in SEE. |
| 31 | CADENCED – DANCE* + [dan]CED. |
| Down | |
| 1 | FLASKET – SKE[wer] in FLAT. |
| 2 | NON-INVASIVE – (ENVISION VAN)*. |
| 3 | ECTOPARASITE – (TAPIOCA + TREES)*. |
| 4 | DO IN – two definitions: “ice” as in “kill”, plus “Do-in”, apparently a form of self-administered massaged. |
| 5 | ROBORANT – RAN in ROBOT. |
| 6 | WAR GAS – (SAG + RAW)<. |
| 7 | AGGLUTINOGEN – ((GLUT + IN) in AGO) + GEN. |
| 8 | ONENESS – NONSE[n]SE. |
| 9 | MARG – GRAM<. |
| 11 | PHILOMATHIC – H in (MACH I PILOT)*. |
| 16 | LETTERED – LET + TER[m]ED. |
| 18 | FERRITE – FE[a]R + RITE. |
| 20 | OIL SAND – SA in (IN OLD)*. |
| 22 | ICONIC – (CON in II) + C. |
| 25 | ODDS – O[l]D D[omain]S. |
| 26 | FIRE – two definitions. |
I think it’s TOENAIL less O, Simon.
As nms says, to toenail is to join two pieces of wood, as I discovered just before I came here. It was one of three I couldn’t parse last week. The other two were 16dn and 26dn, but for the latter that was because I’d guessed WIRE for electrify.
11dn turns out to be one of those words missing from the new Chambers, and I only heard about that problem as I was finished the crossword.
Felicitations Simon and B********.
Got a mental block which stopped me on two of the easier ones, 10a and 29a. (No such trouble this week happily.)
Re Dormouse and 11d, I am using the new Chambers as a weight with which to press flowers, and for crosswords am continuing to consult the wreck which purports to be my old one.
Trouble is, the boards have fallen off my old one and it’s shedding leaves as if it was autumn. Soon it will be a pile of loose paper. (Reminds me of a calculation I once saw that showed that it was cheaper to buy a cheap classic edition of War and Peace and put that in the loo to use as paper than to buy an actual loo roll.)