As usual, an enjoyable crossword from Philistine, to whom, thanks. A couple of tricky ones were the last in. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 A delicate pregnant lady’s clothing displayed with skill (7)
ADEPTLY : A + the 1st and last letters, repspectively, of(…’s clothing displayed) “delicate pregnant lady“.
5 Aroma produced by each 12 not right (7)
PERFUME : PER(for each, as in “rate per hour”) + FUME[ “smoker”(answer to 12 across) minus(not) “r”(abbrev. for “right”) ].
10 Finally, you can afford to disengage (4)
UNDO : The last letters, respectively, of(Finally) “you can afford to“.
11, 17, 24 So few into heritage plan renovated a listed building (3,7,5,2,4)
THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA : Anagram of(… renovated) SO FEW INTO HERITAGE PLAN.
Defn: Listed, as in “tilted”. Also, a UNESCO Heritage Site, or “listed”, to use the UK nomenclature for such buildings.
A cleverly constructed clue in both wordplay and definition.
12 One has a habit that might be irksome, but not I (6)
SMOKER : Anagram of(that might be) “irksome” minus(but not) “I“.
Defn: … to those nearby.
A WIWD (wordplay intertwined with definition) clue.
13 Alienate and upset sergeant (8)
ESTRANGE : Anagram of(upset) SERGEANT.
14 Youngster to lose control round hotel in fashionable setting (9)
SCHOOLKID : SKID(to lose control, say, of a car, resulting in the car sliding) containing(round) [ H(represented in the phonetic alphabet by “hotel”) contained in(in … setting) COOL(fashionable;trendy) ].
16 Isn’t Rob Roy featured regularly in this narrative? (5)
STORY : The 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th letters of(… featured regularly) “Isn’t Rob Roy“.
17 See 11
19 Not a subject to knock back in Somerset: a cider press (9)
PREDICATE : Reversal of(to knock back) and hidden in(in) “Somerset: a cider press“.
Defn: In grammar, that part of a sentence or clause containing a verb and stating something about the subject.
23 Cousteau, perhaps, has an alternative for us (8)
OCEANAUT : Anagram of(…, perhaps) “Cousteau” with “an” replacing(has … alternative for) “us“.
Defn: Of which Cousteau (Jacques) is an example;perhaps.
A WIWD clue.
24 See 11
26 What raises family is covered by “for a start, be a good sport and fuss around!” (6,4)
BAKING SODA : KIN(family;blood relations) contained in(is covered by) the 1st letters, respectively, of(for a start) “be a good sport” plus(and) reversal of(… around) ADO(fuss;a spot of bother).
Defn: … dough.
27 Want to handle dough while talking (4)
NEED : Homophone of(… while talking) “knead”(in baking, to handle, specifically, to squeeze, dough).
28 Ministers send documents back, showing eccentricity (7)
ODDNESS : Reversal of(… back) and hidden in(…, showing) “Ministers send documents“.
29 So returning in the grip of tight authoritarian (7)
FASCIST : Reversal of(… returning) SIC(from Latin, so;thus, as used to indicate that a word is quoted or copied exactly as the original, regardless) contained in(in the grip of) FAST(tight;firmly fixed).
Down
2 Active promotion for several in police department (7)
DYNAMIC : Reversal of(promotion for, in a down clue) MANY(several) contained in(in) CID(abbrev. for the Criminal Investigation Department of the police).
3 Drop of wine (5)
PLONK : Double defn: 1st: … heavily, as in, “plonked himself into the armchair”; and 2nd: Cheap wine.
4 In future, a left side (7)
LATERAL : LATER(in the future, not now) + A + L(abbrev. for “left”).
6 Old Testament character’s describing New Testament incidents (6)
EVENTS : EVE(the Old Testament first female character)‘S containing(describing) NT(abbrev. for “New Testament”).
7 Devotee separately wrapping partner and himself in the middle? That’s extraordinary (9)
FANTASTIC : FANATIC(a devotee) containing, not consecutively,(separately wrapping) the central letters, respectively, of(… in the middle) [“partner” and “himself“].
8 Staff get on with right boss (7)
MANAGER : MAN(to staff, say, an organisation) + AGE(to get on in years) plus(with) R(abbrev. for “right”).
9 Put off one speech in decline (13)
DETERIORATION : DETER(to put off;to delay) + I(Roman numeral for “one”) + ORATION(a speech).
15 Choice over time of surgery (9)
OPERATION : OPTION(choice;freedom to choose, as in “you don’t have the option to refuse”) containing(over) ERA(a period of time).
18 Where to grow fruit or veg (7)
ORCHARD : OR + CHARD(a variety of beet with edible stalks and leaves).
20 Picture designer with a degree (7)
DIORAMA : DIOR(Christian, French fashion designer) plus(with) A + MA(abbrev. for “Master of Arts”, an academic degree).
Defn: Originally, a scenic painting viewed through an aperture and with variable illumination changing the depicted scene.
21 Posed, clothing reduced, up for minimal cover (7)
TASSELS : Reversal of(…, up, in a down clue) [SAT(posed, as for a painting or photograph) containing(clothing) LESS(reduced) ].
Did the setter mean this:
or this?: 
22 Sleep with soldier, putting head down for a sausage? (6)
HAGGIS : [ SHAG(to sleep with;slang for to have sexual intercourse with) GI(abbrev. for an American soldier) ] with its 1st letter moved to the end(putting head down, in a down clue).
My initial entry was BANG ER, with Royal Engineer being the soldier.
An acquired taste, I think, from the looks of it:
And in addition, picture what’s conjured by the clue’s surface.
25 Like a man from Spain, but without his fear (5)
PANIC : “Hispanic”(descriptive of;like a man, or other things even, from Spain) minus(but without) “his“.
Loved 22.
Thanks Philistine and scchua
I had to keep checking whether it really did say “Philistine” at the top! I liked “listed building” but it was an easy clue – second in, after UNDO – and gave a good start. The rest was also pretty easy, though enjoyable. HAGGIS could have been a Paul clue (btw it’s very good, scchua, particularly when eaten with poached egg).
I didn’t know the “picture” sense of DIORAMA – it means a scene with stuffed animals (for instance) to me. PLONK for me means “put down carelessly” rather than “drop” – a subtle distinction, I agree.
I’m slightly concerned about LATERAL, which seems to me to be an adjective defined by the noun “side”. Can “lateral” be a noun as well?
Enjoyable puzzle. Thanks to Philistine and Scchua (particularly for the parsing of 7) I had also missed the subtlety of “listed” in 11,17,24. Nice.
Like the illustrations you have offered, scchua, for 21d. Bet the chap in the pic on the right is having a far better time than the woman (even if he does look a trifle self-conscious).
I reckon 22d wins un-PC clue of the year – loved it. I had ECOANAUT instead of OCEANAUT, which made just about as much sense as a neologism. Favourites were BAKING SODA and HAGGIS. Many thanks to Philistine and scchua.
I liked this puzzle. Thanks to Philistine and scchua.
scchua, that was kind of the mental image I had for “minimal cover” when I solved 21d, though the rhs pic is a bit more graphic than the one in my mind’s eye! I actually liked the cheeky use of SHAG as part of the sausage in 22d. Like others, though, I thought I may have been dealing with a Paul puzzle in disguise!
Like drofle@5, I toyed with something to do with ECO in 23a, having long since abandoned any earlier thoughts to do with DIVER (like DIVERGENT, which just didn’t fit)!
Favourites were THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA (11,17,24a) (as a sailor on a sometimes tilting/listing monohull, I loved the “listed” part of the clue) , 14a SCHOOLKID, and 26a BAKING SODA.
Thanks all
I failed to enter haggis because I couldn’t accept the definition.1 across was excellent.
11,17,24 is a fine example of a problem with cryptics, it is a clever clue but once p?S? appeared it became obvious and the whole thing opened up!
Terribly slow @4
Perhaps because he is gay!
A pleasant challenge – neither too difficult or too easy. No particular favourites today, but as someone who was brought up in Scotland I always enjoy sampling a good haggis! Thanks to Philistine and scchua.
Thanks Philistine and scchua.
This seemed to go in fairly easily, especially after PISA was solved. LOI OCEANAUT took some time, though. HAGGIS was suitably Paulian, I wondered at the beginning what ‘sausage’ was doing in the surface, doh!
Many to like, with TASSELS standing out, so to speak.
27 put me in mind of a Ken Dodd rhyme: My profession is a baker, I think you ought to know, I do not really like my job, I only knead the dough”.
This was very enjoyable and not too difficult. HAGGIS was funny and indeed very Paulish. 11, 17, 24 did fall into place quite easily, both from the word lengths and the word “listed”, but I still think it was a great clue.
Muffin @2: I think “side” is a noun in the surface reading, but as the definition it’s an adjective, as in a side panel / a lateral panel.
Strictly speaking as a Scot haggis is not a sausage it is a pudding reference Rabbis Burns “great chieftain o’ the pudding race”. Other than that enjoyable puzzle
Alasdair
I must have spent as long wrangling with the last two clues as I did with all the rest of the puzzle put together.
Tried to reverse-engineer OCEANIST, then fiddled with an anagram of “Cousteau” with “us” replaced by “or” – all to no avail – until I finally hit on the formula for OCEANAUT. Then, as is the way, HAGGIS went in straight away.
Thanks, Philistine and scchua.
Thanks Philistine, sschua, and for the pics
Good fun, relatively gentle, with just a couple of gnarly ones at the end.
Very disappointed it wasn’t ‘Octonaut’
Took me a while to see past banger, since I had the A and the G
If it had been Rufus, the clue would just have been ‘Listed building’. I wonder if that would have made it (even) easier, since then one would only have had the ‘listed’ to pay attention to.
I thought ADEPTLY, UNDO, STORY, PREDICATE, ODDNESS were all particularly good examples of clues where all the letters are given.
Thank you Philistine and scchua.
I did not get the long answer until towards the end when I had the P of PISA, quite glad since the puzzle was relatively plain sailing for me after the last few days, a lovely clue. I also liked the clue for PANIC.
23 last one in, solved by working out where the U could go then it fell into place.
@13 I wasn’t sure a haggis could be a sausage either, but a pudding can be a sausage if it is black!
Thanks to PHILISTINE and scchua. I much enjoyed this one, especially after struggling with several recent puzzles. More than the usual number of substitutions here, but I did finally parse OCEANAUT (my LOI). I wasn’t sure about TASSELS but scchua’s images bared the truth.
i find it irksome to read comparisons of setters. eg Paulish. Rufusian. They all deserve their own 15 minutes of fame. I really enjoyed Philistine today, although somewhat of a misnomer. And my experience of haggis wasn’t a sausage. No little thing. Kept you going from morning til night.
In retrospect this was all pretty straightforward, so I don’t really know why I made heavy weather of this one. Enjoyed the challenge. Not sure I had seen OCEANAUT before. I had a question mark against haggis=sausage too, but that didn’t hold me up for long.
Thanks to Philistine and scchua
Thanks Philistine and scchua.
It took me far too long to get the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but after that I finished quickly.
Haggis was the last one in. It fits the definition of a sausage – ie minced meat and spices etc in a casing.
I set a crossword for the local church fair, and was rather proud of my clue for haggis: “A horse in his puddin'”. The animal in question is actually sheep.
Isn’t the definition of 22ac “Raising agent” rather than dough?
Marienkaefer@21, re 22ac, the ellipsis in “Defn: … dough” stands for what’s underlined in the clue, giving “Defn: What raises dough”.
The word ‘sausage’ does have a question mark after it in the clue for 22d, the word ‘pudding’, see Alasdair Gow @13, comes from the Latin word for sausage, botellus, via the French boudin, boudin noir is black pudding.
sschua @ 22
Sorry -I clearly misunderstood
Mostly straightforward, all of it enjoyable, and I enjoyed also the added value from the blog and comments. The pictures revealed more than the words; I’ve seen two good clues for HAGGIS (Philistine’s and Marienkaefer’s @21); and I’ve just twigged who the man is in the photo (and therefore understood RCW’s comment @8).
{And a rare captcha too: [x] x one = one)
Thanks to setter, blogger and commenters.
HAGGIS was LOI and was a guess because I didn’t see the SHAG part. I didn’t really get TASSELS either but I couldn’t think of anything else. Too innocent, you see! The rest of it was pretty straightforward although I’d not heard of OCEANAUT. It was easy to work out though. Liked SCHOOLKID.
Thanks Philistine.
Enjoyed this.
Favourites were the long clue, PREDICATE, OCEANAUT (despite double duty), ODDNESS, EVENTS, MANAGER, HAGGIS, PANIC
many thanks philistine and thanks scchua for an excellent review
Definitely the easiest Philistine I’ve ever tackled. At least 75% of the clues were write-ins. Those that weren’t were so well clued that they didn’t hold out for long. All done and dusted in about 15 minutes which was very disappointing for a Friday. (Thanks Ed!)
I was surprised that there weren’t howls of anguish on here about 21d. P managed to get smut into both the wordplay and the surface reading. (It made me laugh anyway. Not as funny as the comment on here about Paul O’Grady having a good time with a scantily clad female. This has already been noted by RCW)
Thanks to Philistine and Scchua – I enjoyed this – mostly fell into place fairly easily despite a few beers – admittedly the long one was one later rather than sooner – should have twigged with “listed building” – LOI was 29A which held me up for quite a while going through letters of the alphabet in my head and assuming it had SO going backwards in it – d’oh! My favourite was HAGGIS – although I expected the sausage definition would raise a kerfuffle..
Everyone seems to have liked this crossword, we did too.
But as some others said (e.g. BNTO), it was quite easy (which is as such not a problem if it’s compensated by some corkers).
Clues like 13ac (ESTRANGE), 18d (ORCHARD) and 25d (PANIC) are crossword chestnuts that I wouldn’t want to clue in that way anymore.
But true, it’s always good to have some clues that give you a way in.
For us, it was the long one (11,17,24) which was straightaway clear from the wording plus the enumeration.
It is indeed the kind of problematic clue, the one the setter puts a lot of effort into but where the solver cannot be bothered too much.
My personal FOI was UNDO (10ac).
When Philistine uses the word ‘finally’ you often know that there will be a multiple fodder.
It’s one of his trademarks but it has become somewhat predictable.
So, 1ac and 26ac weren’t a surprise either.
Another of Philistine’s trademarks (perhaps because he’s a surgeon, who knows) is the occasional ‘smut’.
Where many of the posters above especially liked HAGGIS (and TASSELS), we just moved on.
I think having two reverse hiddens quite close to each other (19ac and 28ac) is something I would have tried to avoid.
Our LOI was OCEANAUT (23ac).
A clue with the finesse some of the puzzle was lacking.
Even if I do not like double duty (although some might perhaps think this is a sort of &lit).
Am I grumpy?
Not really.
It was an enjoyable crossword but perhaps not demanding enough for us.
Thanks scchua (& Philistine, of course).
Of course,. Paul O’Grady might well be interested in outlandish female clothing since he spent many years as
Lily Savage before the dogs came along!