Everyman 3282 – Fifteensquared

It felt like a lot of anagrams and first or last letters this week, but maybe that was just the order in which I approached the clues. The few place name answers were not hard to work out from the wordplay, but also not that well-known (at least to me) so some post-crossword googling was required to check. Actually as a general rule, while the answers weren’t always obvious from the definition, the wordplay was usually pretty easy so it shouldn’t have been particularly troubling.

Across
1	SHOP-SOILED – SHOPS + OLIED
6	BOLD – BOD around L
10	CUT UP – U(pse)T< in CUP. Interestingly the clue here tells us to reverse UT but it would work equally well if we didn’t and put it in a different place. I assume this was because the surface reads better with “suffering setback”.
11	DORDRECHT – D + REDTORCH*. A port in the Netherlands.
12	NEW JERSEY – NEW + JERSEY
13	TEETH – hidden in staTE ETHiopia
14	HANSEL AND GRETEL – ALEGENDENTHRALS*
17	NORTHERN IRELAND – NORTH + DINNEREARL*. Frederick North was British Prime Minister from 1770-1782.
20	YEARN – YEAR + (ramada)N
21	OFF LIMITS – O + FILM* in FITS
23	ON THE NOSE – HONEST* in ONE
24	TIARA – I in TARA. Tara is the name of the plantation in Gone with the Wind.
25	NINA – hidden in fuN IN Acapulco
26	DEAD-NETTLE – ATTENDED* + LE

Down
1	SECOND HONEYMOON – SECOND + [HOME + NO + (holida)Y]*
2	ON TOW – ON + TO + W(aterway)
3	SUPREME – S(ize) + UP + REME. The REME are the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.
4	IN DESPAIR – DINES* + PAIR
5	EARLY – (n)EARLY
7	ORCHESTRA – HERCOSTAR*
8	DUTCH ELM DISEASE – THISMALEDEDUCES*
9	CRATER – CRATE = banger as in old car + (firecracke)R
15	NORMANTON – NORM + ANTON
16	DRIFFIELD – DR + IF + FIELD
18	HUNTER – dd
19	EPISTLE – E + S(hor)T in PILE
21	OZONE – O + ZONE
22	INAPT – IN + APT