Fifteensquared

A typically excellent crossword from Virgilius to start the new year.  The two themes — anagrams of colours and some other pairs of anagrams — are no doubt related in some very clever way, but unfortunately I can’t see how. No doubt someone will explain. This seemed unusually difficult for a Virgilius.

Since I started writing here, this is the first time I am encountering Moodim.

I enjoyed doing the puzzle.

Across

1 RAISED EYEBROWS - two def. - Pleasing clue; the arch of the eyebrows when women return from the beauty parlour after having had the hair growth “plucked” (or whatever the term is) is pronounced, so I have myself gasped sometimes.
10 ACT UP - a c(t)up
11 SHELF LIFE - Pleasing wordplay. But the long second definition is so explicit that one can solve the clue with just that.
(On edit) The wordplay is provided in a comment below.
12 PILGRIM - rev. of rim, G, lip. Nice surface reading.
13 DREDGER - Evokes a plausible image - dr., edge, R - dr. for driver is recorded in Chambers though I have never seen it used anywhere. Nor dr. for drummer. Dr. for Drive (as in street names) is understandable.
14 NIECE - ni(E)ce - the wordplay is old hat but the clue wording is new.
16 ADDICTION - Nice clue - a d(D)iction
19 PAY PACKET - pay, packet - is breakup like this permissible?
20 RICIN - (p)ricin(g) - Don’t have murder on your mind but Wikipedia informs: Ricin is a protein toxin that is extracted from the castor bean (Ricinus communis).The U.S. Centers for Disease Control gives a possible minimum figure of 500 micrograms (about the size of a grain of salt) for the lethal dose of ricin in humans if exposure is from injection or inhalation.
22 OUSTING - ou(S)ting - If R is for river in maps, S is for Sun in drawings of the solar system, perhaps.
25 INSIGHT - sounds like “inn cite”. (On edit, correcting a typo) “inn site”.
27 FORMALISE - did you juggle with “emails are”? for, malise (anag. of emails)
28 OLIVE - rev. of evil, o. Can’t imagine how the tree was returned; perhaps it was a sapling then.
29 REPRESENTATION - did you think ‘operates’ was the anagrind? Anag. of “intern operates”, ‘works’ being the anag. signal.

Down

2 ARTILLERY - art(ill)ery
3 SUPER -su(p)per - I need help to understand what a ‘poncy start’ is.
4 DISEMBARK - Very good surface reading. I solved it after I got a couple of crossings and saw ‘land’ (v.) in the clue. I am yet to work out the wordplay. Perhaps someone will comment.
(On edit) See below.
5 YIELD - Excellent wordplay for this frequently occurring word in crosswords. - Y,ield (anag. of ‘idle’)
6 BUFFET CAR - buff, etcar (anag. of ‘react’)
7 OWING - (v)owing
8 SWEAR IN - did you think this was a reversal clue? - anag. of ‘a new sir’ - Is ‘arising’ a valid anag. signal? Why not? When ‘arising’ has the sense ‘rising up’.
9 DAMPEN - dam (rev. of ‘mad’), pen - In wordplay ‘flipping’ = ‘turning over’ but in surface reading it is = nasty.
15 ERADICATE - Veteran solvers needn’t read the clue beyond ‘puss’: that’s an excuse for my not fully working out the involved anno!
17 DETRIMENT - ‘trime’, anag. of ‘merit’, in dent
18 INCOGNITO - Good surface reading. incognit (anag. of ‘noticing’), o - ‘doctor’ is the anagrind. Is “is” obtrusive in wordplay? Comment sought.
19 PROFFER - PR, offer
21 NUTMEG - nut, Meg (the first time that I came across this female name was in a poem titled ‘Meg Merrilees’ that I read in school).
24 GUISE - “guys”
26 SCOOT - s, coot

dd = double definition
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
*(fodder) = anagram

Not that difficult a puzzle. Quite entertaining but nothing really special. This blog will nevertheless attract probably 20 or more responses whereas the superb Christmas puzzle (FT12,956) by Cinephile (aka Araucaria) with its jumbo plus an alphabetic soup of capital cities attracted a grand total of zero response. Ditto for FT 12,957 by Dante which required solvers to make up the 15×15 grid as well.

ACROSS
1 REDCOATS *(ted oscar)
5 ROOTED *(TE, first and last letters of troublesome + DOOR )
9 FLETCHER What a lovely clue for a maker of arrows and also Fletcher Christian who led the mutiny on the Bounty
10,21 ATOMIC ENERGY *(geometry I can)
11 SPECIMEN dd (calling someone a specimen is like calling him shit)
12 WEALTH *(the law)
14 MARY BARTON Ins of BART (Simpson) in *(Romany) the first novel by English author Elizabeth Gaskell, published in 1848, set in Manchester during the 1830s and 1840s and deals heavily with the difficulties faced by the Victorian lower class
18 SIDEWINDER Ins of WIND (flatulence) in SI (rev of is) DEER (rev of reed, grass)
22 OOLONG Cha of O (round) ditto LONG (yearn) I think the first “after” is unnecessary
23 PETER PAN Simple cha for a well-known book
24 INSTAL Cha of IN (home) S (middle letter of music) + TAL (first letters of then actually listen)
25 STRAINER Ins of R (recipe) in Stainer (Sir John Stainer (London,  1840 – Verona ,1901) was an English composer
26 NURSES dd nurse2    n a shark; a dogfish.
27 ERRANTRY Ins of R (first letter of reporter) RA (Royal Artillery or Gunners as in Arsenal) in ENTRY (lanes between houses)

DOWN
1 REFUSE dd
2 DIESEL Cha of Dies (passes on) el (elevated railway in the US
3 ORCHID Cha of OR (other ranks or soldiers) Chid (rebuked)
4,6 THE REMAINS OF THE DAY There (present) main (chief) + ins of OFT (frequently) HE’D (he would) in SAY (for example) The Remains of the Day (1989) is the third published novel by Japanese-British author Kazuo Ishiguro. It is one of the most highly-regarded post-war Britain novels. It won the Booker Prize in 1989 for Best Fiction, and was later adapted into an Academy-Award nominated film, staring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. The novel ranks in the Sunday Times list of 100 greatest novels. However, I have one small misgiving about this clue. Present is normally ‘here’ as the answer to a roll-call. If so, how do you explain the first ‘t’?
7 TEMPLATE Cha of temp (office worker) late (former)
8 DECKHAND too simple to warrant further explanation
13 TYPESETTER Cha of type (kind) setter (dog)
15 ESTONIAN Ins of S (first letter of state) in Etonian (college student)
16 IDOLISER I (middle letter of faint) + *(soldier)
17 SWAN LAKE S (first letter of Siegfried) Wan (pale) Lake (lake2
n a reddish pigment originally derived from lac)
19 NEVADA Ins of Evad (rev of Dave) in NA (North America)
20 SPINET Ins of Pine (wood) in ST (street)

I found this puzzle fun to do, once I got the hang of how it worked. In each across clue, the definition gives a word containing either ASS, PIG, EWE or CAT; the subsidiary part gives a non-word (in most cases) with a different one of the animals; before writing it in the grid, you need to change the animal yet again.

As always with Araucaria, some of the clues are not for the Ximenean purist — I particularly like ‘Tendulkar out’ to give SACH in 26a.

Unfortunately, both this and the November Genius have appeared rather bizarrely set in Courier, which is a bit offputting. It would be nice if they could be properly typeset.

My first day back at work after Christmas (boo!), and it’s back to traditional scheduling with a gentle Rufus puzzle. I’m unsure about my explanation of 19ac and unhappy about 26ac.

Key:
dd = double definition
cd = cryptic definition
* = anagram
< = reverse