When I choose to solve and blog at midnight rather than the next morning, there's not usually enough of a sample of other online solvers to work out if I've been comparatively fast or slow, so we shall see; 13:05 on the Club timer suggests a puzzle which was pretty straightforward, though quite enjoyable. There was an unknown plant, but there seems to be an inexhaustible supply of plants I've never heard of in the dictionary, so this didn't surprise me. Otherwise, I don't think there were any major obscurities.
| Across |
|---|
| 1 | SATANISM - (ANTIMASS)*. |
| 5 | ETHICS - trutH in (Singular CITE)rev. |
| 9 | RAINCOAT - R.A. INC. OAT. |
| 10 | METTLE - MET(=satisfied") TaLE without A. |
| 12 | SUPERNATURAL - (TURNUPASREAL)*. |
| 15 | LEARN - Edward LEAR, Note. |
| 16 | HEADBOARD - EAch, (BeD)rev. in HOARD. |
| 18 | MUTILATED - Answer in MU, TILTED (as the Greek letter might be, if written in italics). |
| 19 | CURVE - Verse in CURE. |
| 20 | TRAMPOLINIST - cryptic def. |
| 24 | HEALTH - L in HEATH. If the setter's intention was for me to run through a mental list - Cordoba, Granada etc. - before realising it was a more literal, and non-alphabetised moor, the setter was successful. |
| 25 | ABRASIVE - BRA in [AS,I'VE]. |
| 26 | DATURA - UnpopulaR in DATA. I didn't know the word, as I say, but once I had D_T_R_ from the checkers, and D_TUR_ from checkers and wordplay, DATURA looked a pretty likely candidate for yet another plant I'd never heard of. |
| 27 | BEDECKED - [(CEDE)rev., K] in BED. |
| |
|---|
| Down |
|---|
| 1 | SERF - reverse hidden in oF RESidents. |
| 2 | TWIT - withouT, WIT &lit. This was last in after a good pause for thought, and for the life of me I can't now see why (on reflection, and seeing that others had trouble spotting it as well, I should perhaps have said that this is, of course, one possible definition of a good clue...) |
| 3 | NOCTURNAL - OCTober in New URN, ALL. |
| 4 | SPACE SHUTTLE - Small PACE, [L in SHUTTER]. The ill-fated Challenger was one of six Space Shuttles; had the setter been so inclined, we might have seen the crossword world's favourite detective, and had Endeavour instead. |
| 6 | TRENT - TORRENT without the OR. |
| 7 | INTERMARRY - another cryptic def. |
| 8 | STEPLADDER - (SET)*, PLace, ADDER, with an elegant semi&lit. surface. As Harry Hill said, this is my stepladder, not my real ladder. I never knew my real ladder. |
| 11 | UNPARDONABLE - (NOBLERPADUAN)*. |
| 13 | ILL-MATCHED - 1 Line, [Mass in LATCHED]. |
| 14 | MARTIAL ART - cryptic def. and by some way the best of today's. |
| 17 | BACKSPACE - BACK'S PACE, and the key up to the top right of your keyboard. |
| 21 | PETER - PET(="caress"), ER(="I'm not sure"). |
| 22 | MINK - MINKe. A whale which always makes me think of Inspector Clouseau. |
| 23 | FEUD ="FEW'D". |