Poins is usually in the IoS, but there are occasional weekday appearances, and we are the happier for that. This was a sound and enjoyable crossword with some very good clues.
Definitions in maroon, underlined. Anagram indicators in italics.
I never looked for a Nina and now it’s too late. Certainly I wasn’t aware of anything while solving.
| Across | ||
| 1 | BONA FIDE | Fob Diane off for real? (4,4) |
| (Fob Diane)* | ||
| 5 | BALBOA | Love to tell tales about American explorer (6) |
| (0 blab)rev. A — this chap | ||
| 10 | UPROOTS | Completely destroys grub carried by delivery company (7) |
| UP(root)S — I don’t think everyone is very happy with the free advertising given to commercial companies by this type of clue; unfortunately UPS appears in lots of English words, usually split. | ||
| 11 | CHANNEL | Left after church with girl’s flute (7) |
| (ch. Anne) L — several meanings of flute: this seems to cover it | ||
| 12 | CHEAP | Inexpensive headgear worn by ambassador (5) |
| c(HE)ap | ||
| 13 | OUT-AND-OUT | Definitely dismissed accepting Brown into Unionist party (3-3-3) |
| o(U(tan)do)ut — there is no very obvious party called the UDO (Union of Democratic Organisations, or something like that) and I was about to ask what was going on before realising: it isn’t the apparently non-existent UDO, it’s U [Unionist] next to do [party] | ||
| 14 | COUNTERPOISE | Offset by cousin Peter surprisingly receiving nothing (12) |
| 0 in (cousin Peter)* | ||
| 18 | GOLDFISH BOWL | Good angle to capture ancient stadium’s facility for swimmers (8,4) |
| g (old) fish [angle] bowl [stadium] — nice misleading definition | ||
| 21 | SUPERNOVA | Unusually suave porn star (9) |
| *(suave porn) | ||
| 23 | RHONE | Somewhat tubular honeysuckle flower (5) |
| Hidden in tubulaR HONEysuckle — the crossword perennial the flow-er | ||
| 24 | EVASIVE | To prevent doing an about-face Poins has to become devious (7) |
| (save)rev. I’ve | ||
| 25 | NEEDLES | Styluses are largely redundant (7) |
| needles{s} | ||
| 26 | LOGGER | Record pursued by German lumberjack (6) |
| log Ger. | ||
| 27 | ODYSSEUS | Legendary hero finding last of deadly doses concocted by us (8) |
| ({deadl}y doses)* us | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | BOUNCE | Old money boxes discovered in spring (6) |
| b(o)unce — bunce is yet another slangish word for money, one that I didn’t know and had to guess | ||
| 2 | NURSES | Tends to be found in preserves (6) |
| 2 defs | ||
| 3 | FOOLPROOF | Demonstration by Charlie’s incapable of going wrong (9) |
| fool [Charlie} proof [demonstration] | ||
| 4 | DISCOUNT STORES | Ignore rubbish about living in south-eastern Sweden where prices are lower (8,6) |
| discount [ignore] S (tor) E S, the tor being (rot)rev. | ||
| 6 | AGAIN | Kitchen appliance belonging to another time (5) |
| aga in [belonging to, as in … actually I can’t off the top of my head think of two sentences where ‘in’ and ‘belonging to’ can be interchanged, but I’m sure that’s what it is] | ||
| 7 | BONHOMIE | About to be taken in by British gang member’s geniality (8) |
| B (on) homie — I can’t find much justification for homie = gang member (more for homeboy, friend from back home) except here | ||
| 8 | AGLITTER | Sparkling silver conveyance (8) |
| Ag litter | ||
| 9 | SCATTERBRAINED | Describe tartan design as silly (14) |
| (Describe tartan)* | ||
| 15 | POWERLESS | Weak? Not so much after bit of physio starts to oblige with excellent results (9) |
| less after (p{hysio} then first letters of oblige with excellent results) | ||
| 16 | EGGSHELL | What about horses seen on moorland without a hint of foreboding or protective covering? (8) |
| e(GGs)h? {f{oreboding}}ell — gee-gees | ||
| 17 | SLAP-BANG | Comrades upset by group leader supporting prohibition right? (4-4) |
| (pals)rev. ban g{roup} | ||
| 19 | GOALIE | Girl that’s keeping close to zoo keeper (6) |
| g({zo}o)al i.e. | ||
| 20 | VERSUS | Against clergyman returning to South America (6) |
| (rev.)rev. S US — [I mean by the first bit (reverend)reversed] | ||
| 22 | RAISE | In the possession of thieves I arrested going up in lift (5) |
| Hidden reversed in thievES I ARrested | ||
*anagram
Thanks for parsing 1d. Never heard of BUNCE and the use of “discovered” as a link word threw me completely. Apart from that, an enjoyable and difficult in places solve. Thanks to Poins and John.
I’d never heard of BUNCE either, but according to my Chambers it means “to ring up wrongfully on every customer’s bill the price of an item kept beside the till of a supermarket etc, in order to defray losses by theft, etc”. Who would have thought that there would be a word just to describe that! I guess it’s argot – thief’s slang.
Thanks Poins and John
Re ‘belonging to’ and ‘in’ in 6D, I think it works as a slightly extended way of saying “I’m in / I belong to the {insert club name of your choice here}”.
Mostly straightforward, but ‘bunce’ was new to us (Geoff@2: our Chambers has that meaning too, but first it gives it simply as a noun meaning ‘profit or gain, money’) as was ‘homie’ to mean a gang member – although it’s in the Oxford dictionary here so no need to rely on the Urban Dictionary.
Favourites were SUPERNOVA and SCATTERBRAINED.
Thanks, Poins and John.