Thank you to Fed. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Here’s another setter/crossword with an abundance of one-word definitions in the clues.
Across
9. Occasionally, cell buddies escape (5)
ELUDE : 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th and 10th letters of(Occasionally) “cell buddies“.
10. Meet nurse to consider medical TV show (9)
ENCOUNTER : EN(abbrev. for “Enrolled Nurse”, a grade of qualified nurses) + COUNT(to consider/to take into account) + ER(the medical TV show, centred around a hospital’s Emergency Room/Accidents and Emergencies Department).
11. Understand queen’s wearing crown lined with fine fabric (9)
PENETRATE : [ ER(abbrev. for “Elizabeth Regina”/Queen Elizabeth) contained in(…’s wearing) PATE(crown/one’s head) ] containing(lined with) NET(fine fabric, consisting of yarn joined together with open spaces inbetween).
Defn: …/to gain insight into something complex or mysterious.
12. In rehab I treated addiction (5)
HABIT : Hidden in(In) “rehab I treated“.
13. Simple crash involving vehicles blocking bridge (7)
SPARTAN : RTA(abbrev. for “road traffic accident”/a crash involving vehicles in traffic) contained in(blocking) SPAN(to extend from one side to another/to bridge).
15. Tools cutting right into driers (7)
TROWELS : R(abbrev. for “right”) contained in(into) TOWELS(pieces of absorbent material to dry wet surfaces/driers).
17. Lobby in favour of fencing Yorkshire’s border (5)
FOYER : FOR(in favour of/in support of) containing(fencing) 1st and last letters of(…’s border) “Yorkshire“.
Defn: …/entrance hall in a building.
The sight as you walk in: 
18. Excellent soldier leaves coat (3)
MAC : “magic”(excellent/wonderful and exciting) minus(… leaves) “GI”(a solder in the US military).
Defn: A full-length waterproof coat/a mackintosh, called a … in short-form.
20. Fanta’s first, then open Sprite (5)
FAIRY : 1st letter of(…’s first) “Fanta” plus(then) AIRY(open/spacious and well ventilated).
Defn: …/an imaginary spirit, in folklore.
22. Runs with crazy idea, using rap sheets principally to identify looters (7)
RAIDERS : R(abbrev. for “runs”, in cricket scores) plus(with) anagram of(crazy) IDEA plus(using) 1st letters, respectively, of(… principally) “rap sheets“.
25. Frightful person drinking vermouth before five brought back dizziness (7)
VERTIGO : Reversal of(… brought back) [ OGRE(a frightful person/a monster) containing(drinking) IT(informal term for Italian vermouth) plus(before) V(Roman numeral for “five”) ].
Defn: …/the sensation of being off-balance.
26. Stayed in middle of Colditz with English officer (5)
DWELT : Middle letter of(middle of Colditz) + W(abbrev. for “with”) + E(abbrev. for “English”) + LT(abbrev. for “lieutenant”, an officer in the armed forces and in other services).
27. Long-lasting stain finally covered by rug — it’s coloured (9)
CHROMATIC : “chronic”(long-lasting/persisting for a long time) + last letter of(… finally) “stain” replaced by(covered by) MAT(a rug/a piece of material placed on a floor).
30. Put together project, securing vote with an attitude (9)
JUXTAPOSE : JUT(to project/to extend beyond the main body of something) containing(securing) X(symbol used in a vote) plus(with) [A POSE](an attitude/a way of sitting or standing for a painting or photograph).
Defn: …/place close together.
31. Start chess, ultimately, with pawn (5)
SHOCK : Last letter of(…, ultimately) “chess” plus(with) HOCK(to pawn/to deposit a valuable with a pawnbroker as collateral for a loan).
Defn: …/a sudden surprised movement.
Down
1. Intense as, say, Jack Palance’s debut (4)
DEEP : DEE(an example/say someone with that surname is Jack Dee, English comedian, entertainer and writer) + 1st letter of(…’s debut) “Palance“.
And Jack Palance is an American actor, of an older vintage.
2. Q & A about uniform on railway creates a dilemma (8)
QUANDARY : Q AND(represented by the & symbol) A containing(about) U(abbrev. for “uniform”) placed above(on, in a down clue) RY(abbrev. for “railway”).
3. Jazz age was best, conclusively, for enthusiasm (4)
ZEST : Last letters, respectively, of(…, conclusively) “Jazz age was best“.
4. Woman visiting South American country with Mike every year (3,5)
PER ANNUM : ANN(a woman’s name) contained in(visiting) PERU(South American country) plus(with) M(letter represented by “Mike”, in the phonetic alphabet).
5. Tolerate mushroom in a cassoulet on vacation (6)
ACCEPT : CEP(an edible European mushroom) contained in(in) [A + 1st and last letters of(… on vacation) “cassoulet” ].
6. Put Up, Up and Away under film, raising tempo initially, and cause a violent reaction (4,3,3)
PUSH TOO FAR : Reversal of(Put Up, in a down clue) UP plus(and) [ FAR(away/separated by distance) placed below(under, in a down clue) SHOOT(to film/record with a camera) with 1st letter of(… initially) “tempo” moved up(raising …, in a down clue) ].
7. Attempt French for the firm (6)
STABLE : STAB(an attempt/a go at) + LE(French for “the”).
8. Summons determination, making good whiskey (4)
WRIT : “grit”(determination/courage and resolve) with “g”(abbrev. for “good”) replaced by(making …) W(letter represented by “whiskey”, in the phonetic alphabet).
Defn: A legal …
13. Less risky returning in the role of whistle-blower after retirement (5)
SAFER : Reversal of(returning) AS(in the role of/being or acting) + reversal of(… after retirement) REF(short for “referee”, literally the whistle-blower in a match, say, of football).
14. Rotten liar’s awful driving (10)
TORRENTIAL : Anagram of(…’s awful) ROTTEN LIAR.
Defn: Describing rain falling rapidly and with great force.
16. Military unit capturing last of enemy with zero authority (3-2)
SAY-SO : SAS(abbrev. for the Special Air Service, a special unit in the British Army) containing(capturing) last letter of(last of) “enemy” plus(with) 0(letter representing 0/zero).
Defn; …/the go-ahead.
19. Made merry, when Eddy’s almost taken in by rogue (8)
CAVORTED : “vortex”(an eddy/a whirling mass of gas or liquid) minus its last letter(…’s almost) contained in(taken in by) CAD(a rogue/a rascal).
21. TV and papers ousting leader of party before fight (5,3)
IDIOT BOX : ID(short for identity papers) + “riot”(a party, specifically an occasion of boisterous merry-making) minus its 1st letter(ousting leader of …) plus(before) BOX(to fight with one’s fists).
Defn: Informal term for a …
23. Cool chopper that could help to get one up a mountain (3,3)
ICE AXE : ICE(to cool with ice, such as to mix a drink with ice) + AXE(a chopper/a tool for chopping wood).
This chopper: 
… and not this cool chopper: 
24. Field men to support cult (6)
SECTOR : OR(abbrev. for “other ranks”, men in the military who are not commissioned officers) placed below(to support, in a down clue) SECT(a cult/a group with a system of beliefs not widely accepted).
26. What the tabloids call Boris Johnson when Germany replaces British combat training site (4)
DOJO : “Bojo”(what tabloids call Boris Johnson) with “D”(international code for Germany) replacing(when … replaces) B(abbrev. for “British”).
Defn: …/a room or hall for training exponents of judo and other martial arts.
28. Failed in audition for film (4)
MIST : Homophone of(… in audition) “missed”(failed/was unable to take advantage of an opportunity).
Defn: …/layer of fine liquid droplets.
29. Drug that’s acceptable in church? (4)
COKE : OK(okay/that’s acceptable) contained in(in) CE(abbrev. for the Church of England).
Defn: Slang for the …, cocaine.
It’s a pangram. Thanks to Fed and scchua.
Pleasant Quiptic-light pangram. Not much else to say.
Ta Fed & scchua.
First time I’ve spotted a pangram but juxtapose was a strong hint!
Thanks Fed and scchua
Tricky. I didn’t parse PENETRATE, IDIOT BOX, or PUSH TOO FAR (not surprised on the latter, seeing scchua’s parsing!)
Favourite CHROMATIC.
Jack DEE might be aproblem for overseas solvers.
TORRENTIAL isn’t the same as “driving”. Both can be applied to rain, but they mean different things. Torrential rain is extremely heavy; driving rain is blown along by a strong wind. It’s possible to have torrential driving rain.
With the exception of PUSH TOO FAR, less convoluted than Fed can sometimes be. I thought this was a good mix of solutions that I could put together from the word play, and ones I had to parse after spotting the definition.
I first came up with ‘Spawn’ for 31 across and thought, no that’s too easy. It was and I eventually realised it was SHOCK.
A nice pleasant outing with likes of CHROMATIC, WRIT (have I said before I like those substitution type clues) and PUSH TOO FAR for the rather tortuous wordplay.
Fairly straightforward puzzle.
Shouldn’t it be borders in 17? I liked CHROMATIC for the good replacement, and TORRENTIAL for the surface, although muffin @4 might be right about the definition.
Thanks Fed and scchua.
Yes amazingly I did see the pangram – and like Wayne Blackburn, it was 30a JUXTAPOSE that confirmed my earlier suspicion, aroused when I got 2d QUANDARY and 3d ZEST one after the other quite early on. Nothing too hard, though 26d DOJO, my last one in, was an unfamiliar word (at least I knew who BoJo was!). As suggested by muffin@4, this Aussie didn’t have a clue who Jack DEE was so I couldnt parse DEEP at 1d (not complaining, just saying).
Thanks to Fed for a good puzzle and to scchua, who always adds visual interest to reading the blogs.
Thanks Fed, I enjoyed this. Started off rattling through it all quite quickly but then ran aground on a handful of clues towards the end. Managed to fill it all in eventually but couldn’t fully parse a couple – PUSH TOO FAR and IDIOT BOX. Both seem fairly obvious now, of course – many thanks to scchua for the explanations.
Favourites were FAIRY, SHOCK, WRIT, DEEP among others.
For some reason a lot of the answers seemed to leap out just from the definition. I liked 20a FAIRY and 31a SHOCK, both clever and neat. Also the “covered by” device in 27a which was a bit unusual.
Thanks Fed and scchua.
I found this unusually transparent for a Fed puzzle – Quiptic-like as AlanC @2 remarked.
The clues for the short words ELUDE, HABIT, FOYER, DWELT and SHOCK are well constructed – not difficult to disentangle, but given smooth and cogent surface readings. I felt Fed did PUSH TOO FAR with that one: a very long clue with tortuous wordplay and a rather unnatural surface.
[bodycheetah: Average wordcount here is 7.4 – rather on the high side]
Thanks to S&B
Enjoyable solve, although not terribly keen on clues like PUSH TOO FAR. I could see roughly how it might work but really couldn’t be bothered to untangle it completely.
Much prefer the more economical MIST. A very elegant clue.
Thanks for unwrapping it all, scchua.
Wayne B @3 – thanks to JUXTAPOSE, I had spotted and completed the pangram with only half the grid filled, so the knowledge was absolutely no help at all with the rest. Chiz!
…meant to mention another favourite – FAIRY. Loved the 2 canned drinks.
A quick solve, although it took a while to penetrate some of the looser definitions… Favourite clue today was Chromatic, sweeping part of the clue under the mat. Some clues a little on the easy side, all in all, today’s crossword didn’t push too far…
PS: DOJO was new to me, though the solution was obvious from the wordplay. It seemed that, having gone for a pangram, Fed had painted himself into a corner 🙂
Gervase @16
I had a vague memory of DOJO, but tried GOJO first until 26a didn’t work.
Got everything out, but I had a depressingly long “Huh?” list when I came here. Perhaps I wasn’t on the right wavelength, but PUSH TOO FAR, SPARTAN & CHROMATIC stumped me. We used to have a Roads & Traffic Authority, which I took to be the RTA in SPARTAN. Would never have got IT for vermouth, and never heard of Jack Dee.
But enjoyable on the whole. Thanks Fed & scchua.
Deep, loi, was a bung without shrug … couldn’t be much else. Last saw Jack Palance in the charming Baghdad Cafe (great soundtrack too), but nho Jack Dee. Gentle potter for a Thursday, thx Fed and scchua.
Years ago, here on 15², I would often express my disappointment with the unexpected, or egregious, facility of solving some puzzles. I came to think it was a little distasteful (other less experienced solvers were being irritated it seems) so stopped doing it at least five years ago. I notice that at least one of our newer commenters has established themself with that same plea. Well, today I’ll join back in but only as it’s a Thursday since I don’t think I’ve ever come across a quiptic on a Thursday. Not a Thursday, surely? I’ve been telling people for decades – if you want a Guardian crossword with some bite, buy a copy on a Thursday. Oh! How things change….thank goodness we at least have a stable government!
Nice blog, as ever
I flew through this for once, before getting pretty stuck on PENETRATE and WRIT. Got there eventually though. Spotted the pangram far too late for it to be any use.
Enjoyable stuff. Thanks Fed & scchua.
In contradiction to the usual (if somewhat arbitrary) experience of the puzzles getting tougher as the week progresses, I found this the most accessible of the week, even including the quiptic. Almost half of the across clues were write-ins on the first pass, which gave me an abundance of helpful crossers to tackle the downs. It all fell into place rather nicely. Also, it’s the first time I’ve spotted a pangram in advance. So it made me feel extra-clever!
PUSH TOO FAR was however a bung based on definition/crossers as the parsing was a little too convoluted for me. DEEP made me smile as one comedian namechecks another, though possibly a tad unfair for non-Brits to get to DEE from ‘Jack’. Oddly, my LOI was TORRENTIAL, which should have been easy to spot as an anagram.
Thanks both!
I thought COKE was a lovely clue with neat wordplay and a great surface – should do wonders for attendance rates 🙂
Here’s some Jack Dee for those unfamiliar with his shtick
[Gervase – I’ve updated the spreadsheet to use word count (okay technically space count – 1) – on that basis Pangakupu gets the number one slot. Fed’s word count today was less than his average of 7.8]
Cheers F&S
[We thought that I‘m sorry I haven’t a clue would die with Humphrey Lyttleton, but, after a few temporary try-outs, Jack Dee has been a more than adequate replacement.]
Thanks Fed and scchua. Certainly on the gentler side, but some nice clues I thought, including the Fanta/Sprite combo, as William mentioned.
8d is one of those clues where I think the answer could be either WRIT or GRIT. ‘Making X Y’ would most often be interpreted as ‘making X become Y’, but there’s no logical reason why it can’t mean ‘making Y become X’, as in “He did this by making believable those things which were previously unbelievable”. So ‘making good whiskey’ could mean either ‘making G become W’ or ‘making W become G’.
But what about the convention that the definition comes at the beginning or end of a cryptic clue? Well, yes, and that’s why I eventually chose WRIT. But it is only a convention, and it’s not always followed.
I think it was James last year who gave the example of ‘Eggs delicious on toast’. The plain meaning of this construction is ‘Eggs are/become delicious when placed on toast’. By analogy, there’s no logical reason why the construction of a cryptic clue couldn’t be: [Wordplay element] is/becomes [definition] when operated on by [some kind of transformation, be it anagram, reversal, letter replacement etc]. So I would suggest that in 8d, ‘determination’ could naturally be interpreted as the definition, making GRIT the solution.
essexboy @25 with bemused respect 🙂 the contortions to get to in order to make 8d GRIT rather than WRIT would, I think, make the clue borderline unfair. The setter would essentially be overturning, and expecting the solver to follow the overturning of, two conventions simultaneously – the usual directionality of the word ‘making’, and the placement of the definition. Any setter that did this should be put on the naughty step, I think!
As the definition is normally at the start or end I felt confident going with WRIT.
Though agree that clues like that can sometimes be ambiguous.
Essexboy @25 – I think you’re making molehill mountain. 😉
Quite tough. I found it easier to solve/guess several answers than to parse them. I did not parse 27ac, 1d (Jack Dee? never heard of him as I rarely/never watch TV comedy shows), 13d, 6d, 18ac.
Liked QUANDARY, PENETRATE (loi).
Guessed it was a pangram but did not check.
Thanks, both.
An enjoyable, not too tricky puzzle from Fed
Thanks to him and scchua
Thanks for the blog, AlanC slipping to number 2 in the charts just as KPR hit the top, perhaps your achievements are in inverse proportion.
A lot of good clues here, VERTIGO is very original , I like SPARTAN do not often see this RTA , QUANDARY was clever. Enjoyed this but I seriously hope I will need to scrstch my head tomorrow.
Got there in the end, with loi SECTOR. But struggled to parse many of these. In particular PENETRATE, even as I steadily wrote the crossers in place. Problems with seeing how VERTIGO and CHROMATIC worked too. A couple of NHO’s in IDIOT BOX and DOJO. Perhaps I don’t get out enough, or rather, stay in enough. Did like the smoothness of SPARTAN. Many summers ago since I stared across the Lacedaemonian Plain whilst on holiday there. Many thanks Fed and Scchua…
MrEssexboy@25, it is not even a convention that definitions appear at one end, it is simply the way most clues work. Sometimes it will go in the middle for a “triple” with two COMPLETE bits of word play each side. Otherwise the definition splits the connection between two halves of word play, difficult but not impossible to make it work.
Today we essentially have – Writ grit making g w, very hard to see beyond WRIT, even with your “making” idea it does not connect back to the first word. I think you are channelling your inner David Willetts today.
Do you guys (Brits) think that for the non-Brit colleagues, some of whom commenting here today already, a list of must-know TV & radio shows would help? We have today ISIHAC (which makes me think of ISIRTA but maybe that one’s too remote), MP, FT, … is this list infinite or is there a short list that follows the 80-20 rule?
[Bodycheetah@23 I played with this idea a while ago and found that parse tree complexity was a good predictor. It naturally incorporates clue length, but also nestedness. Trouble is, I thought I needed about 10,000 or more labelled samples to determine good weights (not all operators are the same), so put it on the back burner.]
[Dr. WhatsOn @35
ISIHAC was a sort of spin-off from ISIRTA; both originally featured Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden.]
Dr WhatsOn @35 – I don’t know about a list as such, but my dad has always said that he gets all the knowledge he needs to solve the crossword from reading the Guardian.
This is why I find it slightly irritating when some people complain about the cultural references – if these complainers actually read the newspaper rather than just turning straight to the crossword, they might be better informed.
Widdersbel@37, excellent point, the Guardian, Observer and Radio4 seems to cover most things. If something turns up in a puzzle that I do not know then it is time that I learnt.
My only wish is that if something is genuinely obscure ( hard to define I know ) then the word play should be very fair.
Roz @32: haha, would be happy to be second and beyond on here for the rest of the season. At least we kept the Wolves at bay from snapping up our manager.
My students were talking about that, I did think that Wolves was a great name. They take great delight in talking about football just to annoy me. I will have to change the label again on my Paddington bear.
There have been a few mentions of pangrams in the comments recently and I’m not sure that I get what makes a crossword a pangram. Is it just that all the letters in the alphabet appear in the crossword, or is there more to it than that, like do they have to be used in a certain way?
Roz @38 I consider genuinely obscure to be any word I don’t know 🙂
That said I’m happy to crack the wordplay and google to confirm. I know there are some who eschew all electronic aids and I’d be happy to join their ranks if the setter affirmed that the puzzle had been created in a similar manner
Bodycheetah @42 , Azed uses a lot of obscure answers but it is a function of that type of grid, the word play is normally enough to get it. I have never used any electronic aids. Occasionally I will look things up in Chambers or the library after I have finished for the dailies, for Azed I sometimes have to use Chambers during the solve,
Genuinely obscure not possible to define for everyone but I think most people would recognise and agree when we see it.
Eoghainn@41, a pangram simply uses every letter at least once anywhere in the grid.
Yes good one. I didn’t parse PENETRATE or CHROMATIC but hey ho.
Thanks both.
Ps what did “on-word” mean in the preamble?
I am usually doing Indy or Graun crossword on my phone in the early hours so I have no shame in using electronic aids rather than switching a light on, and disturbing the sleeping partner, to look at the dictionary or thesaurus just within reach, as I would have in the past. Not a competitive comment, just the way things have played out re sleep patterns. Plus, I don’t know that much.
Since the “push” in PUSH TOO FAR is a verb, the definitional underline for 6d should extend to include the entire phrase “…cause a violent reaction…” not just the adjective and the noun.
tim@45 and Andrew@47. Bad proofreading now rectified.