A nice straightforward puzzle. Thank you Neo.
| ACROSS | ||
| 9 | BRASSIERE | Club about to give female support (9) |
| BRASSIE (a golf club) and RE (about, regarding) | ||
| 10 | TASER | Stunner posed again facing backwards (5) |
| RE-SAT (posed again) reversed (facing backwards) | ||
| 11 | MILFOIL | Plant originally found on isle brought into factory (7) |
| Found On Isle (first letters of, originally) |
||
| 12 | POSTMAN | One delivering mail — not spam for a change (7) |
| anagram (for a change) of NOT SPAM | ||
| 13 | SIR | Beginning to surveille Irish gentleman’s address (3) |
| Surveille (first letter, beginning to) and IR (Irish) | ||
| 14 | EAGER BEAVER | Always stocks a good beer, ordered by a keen customer (5,6) |
| EVER (always) contains (stocks) A G with anagram (ordered) of BEER then (by) A – customer denotes a person here, not a shopper | ||
| 17 | TENET | Opinion given one way or another (5) |
| a palindrome (given one way or the other) | ||
| 18 | ORE | Raw rock from Who revelatory (3) |
| found inside whO REvelatory | ||
| 19 | CABIN | First murderer strangling bishop in hut (5) |
| CAIN (the first murderer, in the Bible) contains (strangling) B (bishop) | ||
| 21 | AFTER-EFFECT | Post belongings, not seeing the end result (5-6) |
| AFTER (post) EFFECTs (belongings) missing the end letter | ||
| 23 | UPS | Good times! Money invested in FT compilers (3) |
| P (penny, money ?) inside (invested in) US (the FT compilers) | ||
| 25 | DYNAMIC | Forceful police seizing loads to be returned (7) |
| CID (police) contains (seizing) MANY (loads) all reversed (to be returned) | ||
| 27 | DAHOMEY | Old country house secured in 24 hours (7) |
| HOME (house) inside (secured in) DAY (24 hours) – now part of Benin | ||
| 28 | OMENS | Workers put in very large signs (5) |
| MEN (workers) inside OS (out-size, very large) | ||
| 29 | OFF-COLOUR | Blue perhaps: certainly not in the pink (3-6) |
| double cryptic definition – “in the pink” is healthy, “blue” is feeling sad and low and blue and off-colour also denote “indecent” | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | A-BOMBS | Mushroom producers article fails dismally (1-5) |
| A (indefinite article) and BOMBS (fails dismally) | ||
| 2 | CAULDRON | Steer around old Scottish river vessel (8) |
| CON (steer) contains (around) AULD (old, Scottish) and R (river) | ||
| 3 | C S FORESTER | Resistance encountered after Free Scots shot novelist (1,1,8) |
| R (resistance) following anagram (shot) of FREE SCOTS | ||
| 4, 15 | FEEL GOOD FACTOR | Optimistic expectation for catching fish, given decent information (4,4,6) |
| FOR contains (catching) EEL (fish) and GOOD (decent) FACT (information) | ||
| 5 | DEEP FREEZE | Food store, being very low, reportedly delivers (4,6) |
| DEEP (low) then FREEZE sounds like (reportedly) “frees” (delivers) | ||
| 6 | OTIS | Love, then husband flees this regretful lady (4) |
| O (love, zero) then ThIS missing (that…flees) H (husband) – from the song Miss Otis Regrets | ||
| 7 | ASIMOV | Writer like Self to change position, renouncing drug (6) |
| AS (like) I (self) then MOVe (change position) missing (renouncing) E (drug) | ||
| 8 | PRINT RUN | Copies produced from photograph on course (5,3) |
| PRINT (photograph) on RUN (course) | ||
| 15 | See 4 | |
| 16 | ESCUTCHEON | Shield lets axe in once he’s reeling (10) |
| CUT (axe) inside anagram (reeling) of ONCE HE’S | ||
| 17 | TEARDROP | Miserable leak trade pro fixed (8) |
| anagram (fixed) of TRADE PRO – a cryptic definition | ||
| 20 | BLUE MOON | Lower in sky now, initially rare astronomical sight (4,4) |
| MOO (a cow, something that lows) inside BLUE (sky) Now (initial letter of) | ||
| 22 | TANDEM | Two-seater Manhattan Democrat uses (6) |
| found inside (used by) manhatTAN DEmocrat | ||
| 24 | SAYERS | Crime novelist speaks about medical drama (6) |
| SAYS (speaks) containing (about) ER (medical drama)- Dorothy L Sayers | ||
| 26 | MOSS | Racing driver appears in three seconds (4) |
| MO S S (second, three of) – Stirling Moss | ||
| 27 | DOFF | Remove fine fellow attending party (4) |
| F (fine) F (fellow) follows (attending, with)DO (party) | ||
Solver-friendly and smile-inducing – that’ll do me nicely
Thanks to Neo and PeeDee
“Blue” in 29a probably refers to a joke rather than someone feeling sad and low.
As CrypticSue says, this was a grid to crack a few grins, namely, EAGER BEAVER, DEEP FREEZE, A-BOMBS and TEARDROP (the latter two for their amusing definitions). Also appreciated the literary flavour today.
Thanks to Neo, playful as ever, and to PeeDee for those explanations which eluded me.
Nice one bdg, I hadn’t thought of that.
Cryptic Sue, as ever, has succinctly expressed my view. Enough to exercise the grey cells and very fair clueing – a delight.
I think the solution to 11A needs the original letter from on to complete the picture.
Thanks to Neo and PeeDee.
I agree with DuncM@5 about 11a. “Originally found on isle” is “FOI”. The solution is MIL.L around FOI.
Otherwise, good jobs by NEO and PeeDee.
Thanks Neo for a nicely crafted puzzle. I enjoyed EAGER BEAVER and ASIMOV but I failed at CAULDRON and MOSS, the wordplay being beyond me. In TANDEM I hadn’t seen the word “uses” used as hidden answer indicator before. Thanks PeeDee for the blog.
Thanks Dunc, 11a is fixed now.
What crypticsue said.
i somehow managed to find a racing driver called REES (works as a hidden). soon corrected. Didn’t see the parsing to feel good factor.
Many thanks Neo, very enjoyable, and thanks PeeDee
Thanks for the blog, PeeDee.
A good crossword apart from 2dn.
Thanks Neo and PeeDee
A Christmas hangover … which I only got to in the New Year. As per other comments, found it very enjoyable and amusing in parts. Did struggle equating MOO to ‘cow’ – have only seen a MOO COW as the name for ‘the animal that lows’ – still it didn’t get in the way of the solve. Liked the definition of 1d and to be reminded of Col Porter at 6d. Many other good clues to enjoy throughout as well.
Finished mainly in the SW corner with TEARDROP and TENET (held off because of the dubious definition) and then the creator of “Captain Horatio Hornblower’ as the last one in.
Like Brucew, I’m late to the show, being behind in my FTs in order to keep up to date with my Guardians.
Nice puzzle, NEO, lots of chuckles.
It would be nice if Grumpy@11 provided a reason for his eponymous comment about 2d CAULDRON, so we could agree or engage in a discussion about our disagreement. As it is, it is nothing more than a gratuitous grump, which adds nothing to the conversation.