1. Load of drugs taken in party by guru (6)
DOSAGE
DO (party) by SAGE (guru)
4. Baffled prisoner US agent’s taken round US (8)
CONFUSED
CON (prisoner); FED (US agent) is taken around US
10. Insure Imp after restoration or another car? (9)
SUPERMINI
(INSURE IMP)* (*after restoration)
11. Pole saves header from Romanian sweeper (5)
BROOM
BOOM (pole) saves R[omanian] (header from)
12. Girl endlessly touring old foreign country (4)
LAOS
LAS[s] (girl, endlessly) touring O (old)
13. New CO. gets help for one stuck on the line (7,3)
CLOTHES PEG
15. I wouldn’t be invited into Home and Away’s acting troop (7)
OUTCAST
OUT (away) + CAST (acting troop)
16. Orangey-pink male seen in tanning place? (6)
SALMON
M (male) seen in SALON (tanning place)
19. Crack dealer finally moves into The Strand (6)
BREACH
[deale]R (finally) moves into BEACH (the strand)
21. Sweet son gets stuck in enormous sandpit? (7)
DESSERT
S (son) gets stuck in DESERT (enormous sandpit)
23. Cool school going to city to see circus (10)
HIPPODROME
HIP (cool) + POD (school) going to ROME (city)
25. Two assistants, one has kids (4)
PAPA
27. Genre with some horrific stories making a comeback (3-2)
SCI-FI
[horr]IFIC S[tories] (some, <making a comeback)
28. Sort of comedy Friends recalled: touch of Seinfeld, right? (9)
SLAPSTICK
PALS (friends, <recalled) + S[einfeld] (touch of) + TICK (right)
29. Set off in Escort around town known for its school (8)
DETONATE
DATE (escort) around ETON (town known for its school)
30. After losing bit of chubbiness, home help is not so fat (6)
LEANER
c[LEANER] (home help, losing C[hubbiness] (bit of))
1. Silly old laws I reject (8)
DISALLOW
2. Drink fortified wine with Queen fan, perhaps (9)
SUPPORTER
SUP (drink) + PORT (fortified wine) with ER (queen)
3. Distinctive style of dress British paper sent up (4)
GARB
(B (British) + RAG (paper))< (<sent up)
5. Old corsairs avoiding river in numbers (7)
OPIATES
O (old) + PI[r]ATES (corsairs, avoiding R (river))
6. Criminal rifles bags to get bit of material (10)
FIBREGLASS
(RIFLES BAGS)* (*criminal)
7. Around mount’s summit, don’t go and walk heavily (5)
STOMP
Around M[ount’s] (summit); STOP (don’t go)
8. Injury lawyer and graduate bring in brief (6)
DAMAGE
DA (lawyer) + MA (graduate) + GE[t] (bring in, brief)
9. End of stamen pulled from wild flower (6)
VIOLET
VIOLE[n]T (wild; [stame]N (end of) pulled))
14. A poignant novel about a person from South America (10)
PATAGONIAN
(A POIGNANT)* (*novel) about A
17. Surgery helping after bit of overzealous exercising (9)
OPERATION
RATION (helping) after O[verzealous] (bit of) + PE (exercise)
18. Forward girl giving you a smack on the kisser? (8)
ATTACKER
20. Tough group of folk beset by difficulties (4-3)
HARD-SET
21. Head of faculty’s written about yours truly getting lower (6)
DEMEAN
DEAN (head of faculty) written about ME (yours truly)
22. Daily cut first part of story editor pursued (6)
CHASED
CHA[r] (daily, cut) + S[tory] (first part of) + ED (editor)
24. Period feature? (5)
POINT
26. Passage via sound gets you to water-locked land (4)
ISLE
“AISLE” (passage via “sound”)
Got off to a cracking start with this grid but slowed down considerably with seven left to go. 1ac and 9d to ages to parse, don’t know why. 18d was last in because while the answer was obvious from the crossers, I couldn’t parse it. The definition amused me but I’m still not sure what function ‘girl’ serves. Favourites were the intersecting 13ac/6d and 30ac. Thanks to Slormgorm for today’s fun and to Teacow.
Thanks for the blog, Teacow – yes, it’s always nice to see Slormgorm.
I found this a fun solve, as usual. I particularly enjoyed 15ac OUTCAST, 23ac HIPPODROME, 28ac SLAPSTICK, 5dn OPIATES and 9dn VIOLET – all cleverly constructed, with witty surfaces. I thought 14dn PATAGONIAN was a clever anagram.
Many thanks, Harry, for helping to brighten a wet and windy Monday morning.
I too enjoyed it, but came a cropper in the south. I still don’t get 18dn ATTACKER, but enjoyed the same ones as @2 Eileen. Great Monday pasturage, thanks Slormgorm (and Teacow)
I’m with DianeB re 1a VIOLET.
Not a gripe, more an observation, but I always find ‘flower’ & ‘plant’ clues a bit heart-sinking because of the literally thousands of possibilities (doubled by the old ‘flower/river’ trick). Doubtless setters are aware & use them sparingly but I do find they almost always slow things up. Same with boy/girl/man/woman names.
Enough. A fair and enjoyable puzzle. Many thanks to both.
Thanks Slormgorm — I enjoyed this and I appreciated the smooth and witty surfaces that yielded such answers as HIPPODROME, DETONATE, SCI-FI, VIOLET, and SLAPSTICK. It took me way too long to figure out why “numbers” were OPIATES even though I’ve seen that “trick” a thousand times. Thanks Teacow for the blog.
Thanks Slormgorm and Teacow. Very straightforward and enjoyable nonetheless but shouldn’t it be ‘troupe’ in 15a? I also didn’t much like the second definition of 18d.
To Hornbeam @3,
I’m still puzzling over the ‘girl’ in 18d. I suppose that someone giving you ‘a smack on the kisser'(whether sloppy kiss or slap) may be considered an unwelcome ‘attacker’ but attackers (forwards) in the beautiful game, like Salah, Mane or Vardy are a joy to behold!
And like Grant @4, I was apt to think of ‘river’, specifically the Nile, as I was determined to use the ‘n’ of ‘stamen’. But these sneaky double entendres like ‘flowers’ and ‘numbers’ keep us on our toes.
I am with Diane 8, Steve and Hornbeam regarding 18d – not an elegant clue.
Thanks, Slormgorm and Teacow. Enjoyable for a Monday! N half very easy, S half had a few puzzlers – ATTACKER was my LOI, agree the second definition not great. A lot of inserted or missing letters, clever surfaces.
18ac – forgive me, a bit dense here. In what sense is “right” a synonym for “tick”? Is it something like “tick” meaning “credit, the bill, what I owe” – in which case my tick is someone else’s owed “right”?
jeff@usa @9
Re 18ac: I took it in the sense of a right answer being given a tick – the question mark makes it work for me.
jeff@usa @ 9
It’s tick as in marking a pupil’s work (for instance): tick for right, cross for wrong.
Thanks, Simon and Eileen. Same marks here but usually say “check” for right, “X” for wrong. What’s a good reference for UK uses like these? Chambers or Collins or something else?
Chambers certainly includes that definition, Jeff. Can’t speak for Collins as I don’t have it.
One or both of them are generally cited as the reference work of choice for a publication.
When I bought the Chambers app a few years ago it was available as a discounted bundle with their thesaurus, which is also useful to have.
As with Tees in the Indy, we made steady progress with this. Nothing that was beyond us, though we didn’t quite understand 18dn. CLOTHES PEG was a write-in as we’d encountered a similar clue not long ago (but can’t remember where).
We liked the idea of the enormous sandpit in 21ac – reminded us of the one about the two building workers recruited for a construction job in the Sahara. “Cor! Look at all that sand,” says one. “Yes,” says the other, “let’s get out of here before they send the cement!”
We particularly liked VIOLET and PATAGONIAN.
Thanks, Slormgorm and Teacow.
Very enjoyable! One minor comment: The parsing of 13ac left out the S in GETS.
jeff@usa: Where do you live? I’m in Manhattan.
Thanks to Teacow and Slormgorm
I saw 20d as a charade
Simon@13 Thanks. I see the def in Chambers. US dictionaries have the mark definition but not in the sense of “right”.
Sharon@15 Chicago.
Thanks Slormgorm and Teacow
Put this off a day as I tackled the weekend alphabetical … and then got busy at work.
Whilst the grid-fill for the puzzle went in relatively quickly, there was some puzzling to clear up the why, as pointed out with 26a and 18d.
Also had 20d as a charade of HARD (tough) + SET (group of folk) to get ‘beset by difficulties’.
Finished in the NE corner with CLOTHES PEG (which generated a grin), FIBREGLASS and the trickier than it should have been VIOLET as the last one in.
Jeff, my parents are from Chicago. I love the Windy City!