I shall be most interested to see what others make of this puzzle
ACROSS
1 BACKGAMMON BACK approve GAMMON nonsense
7 SCAB scoundrel C caught in SA + B bishop
9 BIRO IR irish in BO
10 DISCOMPOSE anagram of COPS SOME DI[e]
11 COGNAC hidden clue reversed (on reflection)
12 PROFOUND anagram of PROUD OF
+ N (last letter of lagoon)
13 SEAWATER main source of wetness, anagram of TEAR WAS + E (middle letter of cheek)
15 ITCH [b]ITCH
17 PEEL PEE leak L liberal
19 PLAYGOER anagram of LEG PLAY + O oxygen
22 GRAFFITI GRAF tennis player FIT tantrum I one
23 SLOGAN catchphrase SLOG work hard AN a new
25 FUTURISTIC anagram of FRUIT IS CUT but it doesn’t mean newest or up
26 AVID greedy AVOID duck minus O nothing
27 FEUD F fellow DUE directly reversed (returning)
28 RED HERRING double definition?
DOWN
2 ADIPOSE fatty A anagam (doctor) of SPIED with O nothing
3 KNOWN NOW immediately in KN outer letters of KowlooN
4 ABDICATE surrender anagram of CID BEAT after A
5 MISAPPROPRIATED pinched MIS[s] girl almost APPROPRIATE deserved + D[erriere]
6 NEOCON right wing politician, anagram of NO-ONE and C conservative
7 SUPPOSING fancying SUP drink POSING setting out
8 ARSENIC poison ARSE behind NIC first letters (lids) of narcotics in chemist
14 WELL-FOUND fully equipped WELL small vessel FOUND discovered
16 MASSACRE destroy MASS total ACRE area of land
18 EN ROUTE double definition
20 ELATION delight [r]ELATION next of kin
21 TIDIER more neat?, anagram of (scotch) I TRIED
24 ON AIR broadcast, hidden in barcelONA I Recorded
Thanks for the blog, Jed. I found the puzzle very straightforward; a nice contrast to some of the others this week.
You don’t mention 28d – I have RED HERRING (dd) but don’t understand ‘cover’ as a definition. Chambers gives the example of misleading the dogs in a hunt by dragging a fish across the trail.
I did worry about WELL as a small vessel, in 14d, until I thought of an ink well.
Thanks Jan for pointing out 28across – now added – have just found this definition in Chambers under ‘cover’ – an apparently genuine identity, job, etc used as a front, especially by spies – still not sure
Thanks Jed – apart from 6d for which I thank you, I found this one very straightforward, possibly the most straightforward of all today’s six cryptics. Seemed to be a lot of anagrams as I was solving it, but now I look again, perhaps there weren’t as many as I thought. Thanks Flimsy – a nice bit of lunchtime diversion.
Thanks Flimsy for an enjoyable puzzle and Jed for the blog.
11ac: I think this is just CAN GO C[old] reversed. I can see no “hidden” indicator.
12ac/13ac/19ac: Are you using “+” to mean “containing”? In each case here I would take the single letter as indicated separately from the anagram, with an inclusion indicator (around/around/is involved) as well as an anagram indicator (swimming/weaving/to fix).
25ac: I took “newest” as the definition and “up” as the anagram indicator. I was happy with “up” but less so with “newest”. The best I can get from Chambers 2008 is futuristic so modern (in design, concept, etc) as to appear to belong to some future time.
8d made me laugh out loud.
Jed
You asked what others thought. Well I thought that a reasonably good puzzle was spoilt by the plagiurism of 23A. Falcon had virually the same clue in 13,919.
I didn’t like some words. Futuristic as you say just doesn’t work. Discompose is a dreadful word. Does Gammon mean nonsense?
Was Peel a Liberal Prime Minister? What I can find on Wikipedia is that he was Conservative. What has en route got to do with march? Does Due = Directly? Does mass = total? I thought it was weight. I have heard of moviegoer and theatregoer but not playgoer.