I had a pleasant outing with this crossword. The left half was the first to fall; then the top right and finally the bottom right.
Across
1 CHANCEL – chance, L
5 PIPING – I put in PAVING before landing on this answer. I don’t get the hang of this clue. (On edit) COPING Thanks to Persephone for this and other corrections. (See Comments below)
8 REMINISCE – MINI in RESCE (anag. of scree)
9 RUMBA – refreshingly new clue, leaving alone bachelor, odd and Burma. Shifting R in umbra to the front.
11 ENROL – anag. of loner
12 ESTIMATOR – anag of ‘riot teams’ – Should a compiler avoid an anagram clue next to another in a set of clues? Opinions invited.
13 SURVIVAL – viva ( exam, from ‘viva voce’) in SURL(-y)
15 CUDGEL – cud, gel – Stick is verb in surface reading and noun in word required
17 ELAPSE – (-r)ELAPSE
19 SANTIAGO – san, anti, go (journey, v.). I have no prob with ‘school head’ yielding S.
22 POTENTIAL – anag. of ‘toilet pan’. Can a nounal anagrind follow the anag fodder? Again, I have no prob. After all the surface reading is so good and the intent of the clue-writer patent.
23 DRILL – D, rill. Another neat and concisely written clue.
24 RINSE – telescopic in beeR IN Serbia’. Because of seamless surface reading one does not realise immediately that this is a hidden clue.
25 DEPRESSED – press in deed (doing). When one is in depressed circumstances one is in need. If I tell someone that I am depressed, people would only think that I am sad, not needy.
26 BAREST – BA, rest. I don’t know how [to] bank = rest. (On edit) BARELY – BA, rely (to bank). Read “Graduate” gets “to bank”.
27 NURSERY – (U, rser*) in NY – Another clue with smooth surface reading.
Down
1 CARPET-SWEEPER – Ah, I got the explanation just at this moment of writing! The def. is ‘cleaner’. The wordplay is carpets (reprimands), weeper (keener – one who keens)
2 ADMIRER – A d(mire)r. – Concise and neat clue.
3 CANAL – If the passage had been whole-heartedly erotic it would have been carnal. Alas, it’s not!
4 LAS VEGAS – ‘vega’ in ‘lass’
5 PRESTO – I got the answer without difficulty but the justification eludes me. E may be from the drug. But the ‘container’ part I don’t get. I take ‘found’ (as in ‘hey presto!’) to be the def. (On edit) CREATE – E in ‘crate’
6 PARAMOUNT – par, amount
7 NAME-TAG – rev. of gate man (with the novel def.’access supervisor’).
10 APRIL FOOLS’ DAY – (A floor display)* – Good anag. fodder but a hackneyed anagrind – We have to wait for some months for the occasion to come. “Our revels now are ended”.
14 INSINCERE – lovely word breakup – in, since, RE
16 CALL UPON – Good surface reading – in COUPON, take out O and put in all
18 ANTENNA – rev. clue – girl (Anne), yes but smoker? – The explanation beats me. (On edit) We have to forget Anne. It’s rev. of ANN, ETNA (the volcano)
20 AT ISSUE – another good breakup – a, tissue
21 Not solved. (On edit) TID(DL)Y – DL, rev. of LD. in TIDY (groom, n.)
23 DREAR – D, rear (tower, one that tows)
Hello
5a is COPING (dd)
26a is BARELY (bank (on) = rely)
5d is CREATE (e inside crate)
18d – Etna (the volcano) is the “smoker”
21d is TIDDLY (ld reversed inside tidy)
Your point on consecutive anagrams (11a, 12a) is a good one; for my part I would be more concerned if there were too many rather than where they actually came in the grid.
How can antenna (20 down) cross with nursery (27 across)?
Oops, sorry…I had antenna in the wrong place.
Really enjoyed this one in the same way as I enjoyed yesterday’s Rufus – not difficult but some utterly charming examples of the art of clue writing – notably 9a, 22a, 24a, 5d, 18d. All very neat and concise.
Rishi – thanks for the blog – detailed and thorough as usual, sorry it will be one of your last. On the subject of adjacent anagrams, I think it’s OK since the two across clues provide checking letters for different down clues. I think the idea of that injunction is that since anagrams are the “easiest” clue type, to ensure crossing words aren’t rendered too easy to solve. Does that make sense?