11:54 for a puzzle which I don't think will pose insuperable problems for too many solvers. Where I wasn't certain of the necessary vocabulary (a couple of clues), the wordplay pointed me in only one reasonable direction, which is all you ask in those circumstances. Held myself up by leaping to (wrong) conclusions at 12ac, and found one clue beyond my ability to parse, but mostly a steady and enjoyable solve.
| Across |
|---|
| 1 | HIGH - double def., stinky or physically elevated. |
| 3 | HANKY-PANKY - HANKY (as in pocket handkerchief), PAN("criticise") KentuckY. I raised a metaphorical eyebrow at "criminal" as I thought hanky-panky usually referred to sexy shenanigans which weren't actually illegal, just a bit naughty - the sort of thing a President and an actress might get up to, say; in fact the dictionaries confirm that it can be any sort of dishonest or actually criminal behaviour. |
| 10 | POLICEMAN - (COPINMALE)* &lit. Not sure the surface stands up to scrutiny, really, but it's a write-in anyway. |
| 11 | DICKY - double def., one of them being a dicky bow, as worn by those in evening dress or antique dealers. |
| 12 | OLD MAID - singleton in the Bridget Jones usage, and a card game I remember playing as a child. I made the mistake of thinking the first word must be ONE and having to be disabused of that. |
| 13 | YEASTY - YEA("truly") STY("home on a farm"). Clever clueing meant I was trying to find the "IN" suggested by "at home" and the anagram suggested by "turbulent", neither of which exist. |
| 15 | ROYAL ALBERT HALL - I'm going to have to crowd-source the parsing here - I found it easy enough to see the answer, more difficult to see why it's right... See early comments below, mctext wins the race to explain this one by a short head; well, it's certainly intricate, to the extent I will be surprised if many people parse this, then solve it, rather than the other way round. |
| 18 | MUSIC TO ONE'S EARS - where "report" is the actual sound. |
| 21 | RECORD - double def. |
| 23 | EARLESS - FEARLESS minus the first letter i.e. scalped. |
| 26 | ON DIT - pOiNtDrIfTs. Either I never knew this or have forgotten it (it rings a vague bell), but the wordplay pointed towards a phrase which means "they say" in French, so seemed entirely plausible to mean "gossip" in English. |
| 27 | CHIPOLATA - CHIP, [L in OAT], A. Hmmm, can you really clue CHIP as "potato"? |
| 28 | FLY SWATTER - manY insectS noW in FLATTER; a clever &lit. |
| 29 | BLUE - double def. referring to a mood and, say, a film or comedian. |
| |
|---|
| Down |
|---|
| 1 | HIPPODROME - HIP("groovy"), POD("school"), ROME. The racecourse in the classical world, rather than the music hall of the modern world. |
| 2 | GELID - (EG)rev. + LID. While I still thought 12ac must be ONE, I toyed with "GELEE" until I remembered the important thing, that IT DIDN'T MAKE SENSE. |
| 4 | ARMADILLO - A, [MAD in RILL], Other. As I already had A_______O when I came to this, it was a case of write first, ask about parsing later. |
| 5 | KINKY - King, INKY. |
| 6 | PODCAST - [D.C., A] in POST. |
| 7 | NICOTIANA - [COT in II(a couple)] in NANA. As is traditional, I didn't have any knowledge of the plant, but with the checkers and wordplay I didn't have any doubts about my conclusion looking plausible. Gardeners will probably laugh at me as usual, and say they have literally nothing else in their herbaceous borders. |
| 8 | YOYO - reversal of TOY-TOY. This setter certainly likes an &lit. |
| 9 | SCRAWL - Scribble, CRAWL(as in freestyle swimming stroke) &lit., see above comment. As an aside, why has the swimming world not formally changed the name of the freestyle event to "front crawl", given that everyone invariably (and unsurprisingly) chooses the fastest stroke? |
| 14 | CLOSE SHAVE - ho ho. |
| 16 | YESTERDAY - obviously this only works if you imagine that everyone crosses out the number of the previous day on their calendar as the days go by. They don't, of course, but for the purposes of this clue I was prepared to accept that they might. |
| 17 | ERNIE WISE - ERNIE, the computer which chooses the numbers for Premium Bond winners, "Y"s. The play-writing one with the short fat hairy legs, Little Ern has been an answer before, though only in a weekend puzzle. |
| 19 | CHOCTAW - (CAT)* in CHOW. The other sort of "brave" from 23ac, despite that one being the clue with the scalping. |
| 20 | SERMON - SERF, MONday. |
| 22 | DUCAT - Demanded Until Conceded At Trial. Very clever construction. "Shylock's money" as in "the currency used by Shylock"; the Merchant of Venice hinges on a debt of 3,000 ducats secured against a pound of flesh. |
| 24 | EMAIL - austraLIA MElbourne. Happy Australia Day for the weekend, Antipodeans, and let's not mention the cricket. |
| 25 | GOLF - (FLOG)rev., a cryptic staple. |