All the long clues refer to something a bit intense: OVERBOARD, INTENSIVE CARE, PANIC STATIONS, GREAT SCOT (sic), SHOUTING MATCH, NAIL-BITER. Well, except for UPRIGHT PIANOS (uptight?). One unknown composer at 19D (COATES – of which there are at least two). As usual, if I wasn’t familiar with the definition, the wordplay led me to a reasonable guess, which is the sign of a fair and well-constructed puzzle.
Across
| 9 | D,I,SPENSER – Nice to see Edmund SPENSER himself in a puzzle rather than his vocabulary. |
| 11 | GAL,OP – with G???P, the wordplay clearly indicated the GALOP dance. |
| 14 | PAN,I.C. STATIONS – rev(Nap.). STATIONS shifts from noun to verb in the cryptic reading. |
| 18 | INTENSIVE CARE – “concentrated” (INTENSIVE) followed by (“on”) “Prudence” (CARE) with the definition being “special treatment”. Clean wordplay and good surface. Can’t remember the Ximenean rule about capitalization – but I think this is OK. |
| 20 | O(M,BUDS)MAN – cryptic “sultanate” is frequently OMAN. |
| 21 | ANT BEAR – Kind of an aardvark that isn’t a bear at all but does like eating ants. |
| 22 | BESOM – kind of broom like the one witches use. Unfamiliar to me but once I had B???? I started hunting for the hidden: “wardroBE, SOMetimes”. |
| 25 | TES(TA,MEN)T – Sometimes the little words are hard to make note of: in this case, “Will” is the definition. Familiar idiom is T.A. for Territorial Army (UK voluntary force) – not to be confused with MEN (“soldiers”). |
| 26 | STRAIGHT – double definition &lit. “respectable”, “poker hand” and if you play poker you’ll know that a STRAIGHT is a pretty good hand! |
Down
| 1 | MUD PUPPY – Unfamiliar but the wordplay was explicit. A MUD PUPPY is a kind of salamander indeed. |
| 3 | GREAT SCOT – GREAT=”grate” (“jar”) and it’s Perth, Scotland not Australia but I think the exclamation is actually GREAT SCOTT… so seems like a mistake unless it’s a pun hinting that everyone from Perth is in fact GREAT. |
| 5 | UP,RIGHT PIANOS – UP at university followed by (harps go in it)*. |
| 6 | V(E.G.)AN – VAN often crops up cryptically meaning “in the vanguard”. |
| 7 | YELLOW SEA[l] – “Stretch of water” is a bit of a stretch for a SEA. YELLOW for “sensational” (as in YELLOW press) and SEAL’s our “marine creature”. |
| 8 | REPUTE – (Peter, U)*. I doubt whether Peter Ustinov really was bothered at all by it. |
| 10 | SH(OUTING, MAT)CH – clear wordplay and it’s what we do with words when we argue. |
| 15 | NAIL-BITER – (at Berlin I)*. At first I assumed a cryptic definition related to Germany somehow. Then I saw the slightly ungrammatical “at” instead of “in” and realized anagram. |
| 16 | OVERBOARD – nice double/cryptic definition (two meanings, one of which is cryptic: in this case, “like company chairman?” indicated by the question-mark. |
| 19 | COATES=”coats” – last clue. Had to check that there is a COATES composer: in fact there are two: Albert and Eric. |
| 23 | STE,IN – set* followed by IN (“home”). Presumably it’s Gertrude STEIN. |