I found this a mixture of easy and tricky clues.
The top right corner gave me the most trouble and there were a couple of clues I can’t make much sense of.
| Across | ||
| 1 | DALMATIANS | Animals heading away a tad agitated, they’re naturally spotted (10) |
| ([A]nimals a tad)* | ||
| 6 | WOLF | Eat ravenously when course is over (4) |
| Flow< (as in the course of a river) | ||
| 10 | CROWN | Sign of future king’s personal honour (5) |
| I think this is CR + own, where the CR would be Charles Rex, a possible name Charles Windsor might use, although he’s not under any obligation to use his own name and could choose anything he wants. | ||
| 11 | DOUBTLESS | Oldest bus around, certainly … (9) |
| (Oldest bus)* | ||
| 12 | CABLE CAR | … transport that’s highly regarded by guy motoring organisation retired (5,3) |
| Cable(=guy, as in guy rope or cable) + RAC< | ||
| 13 | COATI | Fur, source of insulation for mammal (5) |
| Coat + i[nsulation] | ||
| 15 | CUTLASS | Lacking energy, attractive girl produces weapon (7) |
| Cut[e] lass | ||
| 17 | LAPWING | Round rugby player, one tweeting regularly? (7) |
| Lap (as in racing,I assume, like a round of the circuit) + wing | ||
| 19 | UNRAVEL | Interpret tune discovered by classical composer (7) |
| [T]un[e] (dis-covered) + Ravel | ||
| 21 | ART DECO | Fancy red coat in 1920s style (3,4) |
| (Red coat)* | ||
| 22 | TOPIC | Assistant ultimately in charge is occupied by work matter (5) |
| ([Assistan]t + i{n} c{harge}) around op | ||
| 24 | MAINSTAY | Mike indeed guards against losing extremely accommodating principal support (8) |
| (M (mike in phonetic alphabet) + ay(=indeed)) around [ag]ainst (a[ccommodatin]g removed) | ||
| 27 | MUNITIONS | Military equipment, single item I found buried in WWI battlefield (9) |
| (Unit + I) in Mons | ||
| 28 | RADIO | Each time essentially Austrian’s combating Nadal, providing close set (5) |
| Can’t make head nor tail of this | ||
| 29 | DHOW | Vessel damaged at the stern? In what way? (4) |
| [Damage]d + how | ||
| 30 | UNFETTERED | Visiting starved character, initially not seen without restraints (10) |
| [L]etter in(=visiting) unfed(=starved) | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | DUCT | Avoided being overheard in Tube (4) |
| Hom of ducked | ||
| 2 | LOOK AFTER | Appear comparatively stupid, without degree in mind (4,5) |
| Look [d]after | ||
| 3 | ANNUL | Cancel year in French university, being employed by uncle regularly (5) |
| An(=French for year, used in a different way to année) + U{niversity} in even letters of uncle |
||
| 4 | INDICES | Scales of charges Spain introduced for third of Catalans (7) |
| Indicts with E instead of 3rd letter of catalans | ||
| 5 | NEUTRAL | Indifferent state in which vehicle’s left parked (7) |
| DD | ||
| 7 | OPERA | Patience, perhaps, Delaware police partly used up (5) |
| Hidden, rev in delaware police. It’s an opera by Gilbert & Sullivan. | ||
| 8 | FISHING ROD | Stick with garden gnome? It might draw many a barb (7,3) |
| Slightly lost on this. The garden gnome with a fishing rod is apparently a common motif, so maybe that’s the def. I suppose the barb must refer to the barbed hook you put on the rod, although I’m not sure if “draw” would be the appropriate verb (unless it’s some kind of fishing parlance i.e. you draw a barb). | ||
| 9 | STOCKPOT | Location near Manchester, not right place for soup ingredients (8) |
| Stockpo[r]t | ||
| 14 | ACCUSTOMED | Scud came to ground as usual (10) |
| (Scud came to)* (ground as in ground up as the indicator) | ||
| 16 | ADVOCATE | Recommend a romantic partner to entertain very old Conservative (8) |
| A date around v{ery} o{old} C{onservative} | ||
| 18 | ICELANDER | European, heartily sick over Spanish, English and German articles (9) |
| [S]ic[k] + el + an + der (all definite or indefinite articles in different languages) | ||
| 20 | LAMPOON | Rascal active politician stops to ridicule (7) |
| A{ctive} MP in loon. Not sure about loon for rascal – it usually means a crazy person. | ||
| 21 | AT ISSUE | Paper supporting American in dispute (2,5) |
| Tissue after A{merican} | ||
| 23 | PANTO | Theatrical entertainment overlong? Switch each half around (5) |
| O{ver} + pant(=long as a verb) with the two “halves” switched round. | ||
| 25 | SPRAT | Swimmer runs to interrupt argument (5) |
| R{uns} in spat | ||
| 26 | FOLD | Cease further trading, car’s changing hands (4) |
| Ford with r{ight} changing to l{eft} | ||
*anagram
In 24a, only the G from ACCOMMODATING is removed.
RADIO is all (each time) the middle letters (essentially) of the words from Austrian’s onwards.
I parsed 8d as you did.
Thanks and a happy Star Wars day to all.
Should have said in 28a, “set” is the definition not one of the “essential” words.
In 8d, the ‘barb’ referred to is this fish.
Thank you to Silvanus for the usual impeccably clued crossword.
8d a barb is a type of fish, as well as apparently a fishing hook, so the solution might ‘draw many a barb’, Hard to pick a favourite so I won’t (I was just about to press post comment and Pierre beat me to it)
Thanks also to NealH
Thanks Pierre & crypticsue. Didn’t know the fish.
Re 8D, I didn’t know (and couldn’t find) barb as a type of fish, so parsed this from an alternative word for barbel, which (as well as being another fish) is also a filament at the mouth of some fish, so the hook of a fishing rod may snag it. I too was stumped on the parsing of Radio, so thanks to Hovis for that. I initially thought Lapwing as tweeting was wide of the mark: its alternative name is peewit, from the sound it makes; is that a tweet? Maybe, I’ll let it pass! Thanks Sylvanus for the entertainment and Neal for the blog.
Tatrasman Barb as a type of fish can be found in Chambers and Collins (the 2 dictionaries I have, so I guess elsewhere as well).
As said already, a mixture of easy and tricky clues. We were fairly certain that a barb in the context of 8dn was a fish, though we didn’t bother checking, and we solved 28ac from the middle letters of “Austrian’s” etc, but couldn’t see the reason for ‘each time’ – the clue works perfectly well without those first two words.
In 12ac we think “that’s highly regarded” is part of the definition – a reference to cable cars transporting people to heights.
Re 20dn, Chambers has ‘rascal’ as one of the meanings of ‘loon’.
Lots to like, but no real CoD.
Thanks, Silvanus and NealH
Thoroughly enjoyed this one, as with all of the compilations from this setter, but I did need Neal’s help with the parsing of CROWN and I’m another who wasn’t keen on loon = rascal despite the opinion of Chambers!
I thought RADIO was very cleverly clued and my top two for enjoyment were the garden gnome’s stick and the tune discovered by the classical composer.
Many thanks to Silvanus and also to Neal for the review.
Thanks to NealH for his review and to everyone else for their comments.
allan_c is correct about the expanded definition for 12a.