Solving time: 22 mins. Pleasing fare, as always.

* = anagram

ACROSS

7 HE PA(R)IN Friendly wordplay for a word unfamiliar to me (but it’s in the Concise OED). A compound occurring in the liver and also used in medical treatments.

10 CHE ER I O Che Guevara from the 1960s - if there were royalties payable when your name was used in a crossword, his estate would be flush now. But we do need those staples to get us on our way.

11 GEORGES POMPIDOU MP in (does groupie go)* President of France between De Gaulle and Giscard d’Estaing. Died in office in 1974.

12 EL (E) (V) ATION e =drug v = very (short). Excellent surface.

26 INTEGER Integers are the whole numbers so the positive ones are 1, 2, 3, …

27 TRENT ON Capital of New Jersey

DOWN

1 C HI (GO) E

2 DR (A) G RACE Dr WG Grace

4 RE (PP) ED Acted as a rep.

5 B (R) AD Very intricate wordplay - good. R = beginning to Rust. For “external feature” means put bad around it.

6 DOCUMENT C = entrance to college in (mounted)*

8 PROC(ED)URE

9 NISEI Hidden reversal

14 OVER(SIGH)T

15 HE ADSHIP (a PhD is)*

16 RE D (ST) ART The River Dart

18 FO(O)L LOWER

20 T ROUGH “The” Northern (or Yorkshire as here) is T - a device more frequently seen in advanced puzzles.

22 SHE ET The book and the film best known to solvers?

25 I(O)TA Greek letter. ITA = Initial Teaching Alphabet.

I’ve blogged Quantum 3 or 4 times before, and I think I have been fairly mild with my criticism in each case.  I don’t really enjoy solving a Quantum crossword, especially a waorkaday puzzle like today’s.

In the past, the setter has used unusual words or interesting long entries to mitigate the lack of fun in his puzzles, but these are not evident today.

Solved in about eight minutes, although I am not sure about 5dn.
ACROSS

1 HEIRDOM - (hired)*-O.M.

5 H(ILL)OCK - would the wordplay “bad if featuring wine “not indicate that the ILL should be OUTSIDE of HILL, rather than the other way around?

10 THINGUMMY - making its second appearance in recent times

12 TORSO - a good surface, although very easy to solve

13 LA(IT)Y

15 OAST HOUSE - where hops are dried out before they are made into beer.  Can’t quite put my finger on why, but I don’t think this clue works, as the hops themselves are not drunk.

18 SUNSCREEN

23 CLINGFILM - clever idea

25 SCRIMMAGE - I’M in (Meg’s car)*

27 REGENCY - (green)*-C(it)Y

28 TREASON - (rate)*-SON - the “an” in the clue is superfluous
DOWN

1 H-ARMFUL

2 IMMERSION

3 DWARF - (fward)* - Nos 2 and 3 (OR) removed from “forward”

4 METRONOME - just not cryptic

5 HOIST - can see Jack, but not the refernce to Lewis?

6 LIGHTSHIP - cryptic definition

7 (f)ORMER(ly)

8 KEYHOLE - very, very easy

14 YACHTSMAN - (Chay n mast)* - if “associated with” is acceptable as an anagrind, this is actually a very good clue, as it relates to the famous yachtsman, Chay Blyth, who was the first man to sail solo non-stop around the world.

17 UNANIMOUS - again not very cryptic

18 SCOUSER - S-(course)* - as a Scot, I tend to have a slight problem with clues which indicate that the northwest is Liverpool/Manchester, as to me they are most definitely in the South.

20 LAMBKIN - sounds like “KIN LAM” (family hit)

22 SPRI(n)G

23 CO-A-L(iabilit)Y

A fine puzzle by this talented setter.

Solving time:  31 mins

* = anagram   < = reversed

ACROSS

1 BO W-W(O)W      www = world wide web = net   BO = powerful scent.    Very inventive and an excellent surface to boot.

5 BAL (lab<) D(P)ATE   New word for me, which it was a pleasure to work out from the wordplay.

9 SIL(LIES)T   Was looking for quite a while for somewhere to put an “is” but did pencil in the last 4 letters straightaway.

11 SIX OF THE BEST    This refers to cricket, where an over consists of six balls bowled in succession by the bowler, and the dim and distant past when caning was allowed in schools, with the phrase also being used figuratively.   Not sure about “spanking” as a definition though but maybe the ? gives this licence.

15 GOOGOLPLEX   A unimaginably large number  - 10 to the power of a googol, which itself is 1 followed by a hundred zeros

18 (HARD TO P) (LEASE)     Very good.

21 RIALTO    (Tailor)*     Market in Venice.

22 HAN GOVER(nment)     Another brilliant clue with “half-cut” used in two senses, the cryptic one shown, and its meaning of “drunk” .

23  C LOSE-S ET   The one I do not fully understand.    Definition, I think, is “only just separated” - I think it’s   C (Colleague initially) LOSES = misses but can’t account for the ET (one phoning home).

24 CHEESY   An artificial, affected, smile, say, and Derby is a cheese.

DOWN

5 BITTER N

6 LETTER BOX    “Better locks”     Excellent.

7 PULL (THE OTHER) ON E     Leg pull = a hoax or joke - this phrase is used (one=leg) if you don’t believe what you’re being told.

8 TROT   tort<    (legal term for wrong)

12 OLD MASTERS  “Arts seldom shoddy with these”    (Arts seldom)*    Not hard, but my favourite in the puzzle.

14 DELI(RIO)US

16 LATCH ET   ET = alien, unfamiliar

19 PA (NI) C    c(in)ap<

20 DIAL (13 is FACE)   Laid<    Laid up = incapacitated.

A tiny bit of a theme here: beheading for crimes against the state. For me this puzzle proved a little easier than most of Cinephile’s and left me wondering if he has an iPod!

Across

1. TRIPOD - R[igh]T backwards + IPOD
6. VILIFIED - VI + L(IF I)ED
9. STAR CAST - double definition
10. EQUITY - double definition. Equity is the actors’ union.
13. BOTHAM - BOTH + AM. This refers to Sir Ian Botham, a great cricket player, a former captain of England and, as so befits the clue, a true all-rounder.
14. CONSPIRE - CON + SPIRE
14. RIDING SCHOOL. The county of Yorkshire used to be divided into areas called ridings.
18. BRINKMANSHIP - BR + INK + MAN SHIP
22. SPRINGER - SP[aniel] + RINGER. This was the hardest clue for me; I am so used to “dead ringer” that it took me a while to remember that “ringer” serves by itself to mean something exactly the same.
26,25. PUMPERNICKEL - PUMP + ER + NICKEL. A nickel is a 5-cent piece in the US. My dictionary suggests that the actual etymology of “pumpernickel” has something to do with German goblins farting!
27. OUTBURST - *(TO BRUTUS). I saw a very similar clue just a few weeks ago.
28. EDITIONS - [s]EDITIONS
29. RETINA - hidden word

Down

2. RATION - [o]RATION
3. PERCHERON - PERCHER + ON. “Passerine” describes an order of birds characterized by their being perchers.
4. DEAR MADAM - DE + ARMADA + M.
5. VATICAN - I CAN with VAT on top
6. LIE IN - LIE(I)N
7. FRUMP - F + RUMP. No, I did not look for a footnote! (Okay, I was tempted to for about one millisecond.)
8. EXTERIOR - [d]EXTERI[ty] + OR
13, 19. SICKEN - SIC + KEN.
15. SPHINCTER - *(CRISP THEN). This is a challenging anagram!
20. NERVOUS - NER(V)O + US
21. REASON - [t]REASON
23. INPUT - PUTIN shifted
24. GARBO - GARB + O. Nice combining of “dress” and “circle”.