Buoyed by getting up to watch an Englishman win a Major for the first time in years, I found this nice number waiting for me at the office. With England through to the semis of the World Underwater Cricket Cup, what more could a man want? Well, if Australia could beat Sri Lanka and thus guarantee England a semi against South Africa, that would be nice. 32 minutes.
Across
1 STARCH - ST+ARCH; 'especially good chap' for St (saint) is very nice.
4 IMPAIRED - AKA 'I'm paired'; another good clue.
10 SCOUNDREL - DR in counsel* [anagram].
11 UNAPT - NAP ('sure-fire winner') in TU ('in Paris you') reversed for the lesser known variant of 'inapt'; there's actually a big difference between a nap and a cert, as the former is merely a tipster's prediction of which nag might win a race, so a question mark or a 'perhaps' is really needed.
12 EARTHENWARE - we hear arent*.
14 RUN - aRgUiNg.
15 SHAMBLE - SHAME around B[ritish] L[ibrary].
17 DECENT - DENT (dip) around CE[p], a mushroom I have only tasted in crosswordland.
19 HAIR+DO
21 C(L)EMENT - straightforward definition well disguised by a smoothly deceptive surface; the 21s were my last in.
23 PAD - PA+D for the soft underpart of an animal's foot.
24 APPARATCHIK - rat pack a hip* for the faceless people who inhabit crosswordland HQ.
26 RANCH - [b]RANCH.
27 PORTFOLIO - PORT + F[ollowing] + OLIO (a dish of many ingredients - a new one on me).
29 UNDERARM - UNDER (hypnotised) + ARM; according to tradition, it was the ladies who first bowled 'overarm' - as everyone except the odd Australian facing the Beige Brigade does today - on account of the voluminosity of their skirts. If you enjoyed the first clip, this one where Richie Benaud launches a thousand impersonations is solid gold.
30 EX[P]ERT
Down
1 SUSPENSE - PEN ('pen' and 'pound' are both places of confinement) inside SUSSE[x]; nice clue.
2 AMOUR - A[r]MOUR.
3 CON - C[oat] + ON; smooth as silk.
5 MA+L+LARD - about the only duck I know.
6 ACUTE ACCENT - A + CUTE + ACCENT; yes, it's so simple in retrospect...my COD. (I was showing off to myself by working around Gide.)
7 REAR+RANGE
8 DATING - DA + TIN + G[rate]; I'm at that stage of my crossword development where I see 'see' and only about the fourth thing I think of is 'date'.
9 F(RING)E
13 HABERDASHER - had her bears* for a word I associate with Mrs Slocombe and the camp one whose name escapes me.
16 ABANDONED - AD ('trailer') around BAND ONE ['opening group' - groan :)].
18 STAKE OUT - STOUT ('porter' as in beer) around a fish I have heard of, [h]AKE.
20 ON PAPER - propane*; 'theoretically ... 2,5' - must be ON PAPER.
21 CURARE - 'curate' ('serviceman' - superb) with R[ight] instead of T[ime] as the fifth letter; curare, a resin obtained from some South American trees, can be either a medicine or a poison, as indeed can most such things. The Greeks, who knew everything, knew this, their word 'pharmakon' meaning both medicine and poison.
22 APERCU - APE + RC + U.
25 HALVE - an easier hidden you will not find. Um, do I mean that?
28 FOX - double definition.