Having a little extra time today, and seeing it was Monk, tackled this.    Very hard and very inventive as I’ve learned to expect.     And there is a theme, referred to after the clue explanations.

Solving time:   51  mins

ACROSS

1 MI’S CHIEF

9 RED DWARF   Doc, one of the seven.

10 TEN ACE

12 U (P (THE D)) UFF      Expecting is the definition

13 T (OTT) Y

14 AS IF    First letters

24 A LOO F    loo = bog

28 TO (E-NA) ILS     Leg ends   Good to have the ” ”

29 RETUR(n) F

30 T (APE) WO RM

DOWN

1 MARQUE (e)

2 SEDATE    Seated with the last letter D raised.

3 HA(W)KE   Oz = Australia    25 = TOP BANANA

7 ABATTOIR    Super cryptic definition    Lower = one who lows = cow

8 EVERY ONE    Ever(l)y Brothers from 1950s    single = one

11 E-FIT     Cockney rhyming slang for face, I think. (boat race)

23 P ASS I M    Brown = Gordon Brown (PM) !

26 pANNIEr

Theme:    The 8 lines with across clues have 2 words in each.   The first ends in F, the second begins in T giving 8 FTs.

Some easy clues and some very tricky clues in the usual excellent offering from Dac.

Solving time: 22 mins

* = anagram < = reversed

ACROSS

1 WHO OPS I remember these two songs by the Who very well so this went in straightway - ops being musical works (though I’m not sure if that term would have been used very often for Who numbers!)

9 MIT HER Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A new word for me that I worked out from the wordplay, verifying after.

10 AMARETTI (not AMORETTI) Learned today, when verifying, about Amoretti (later:Amaretti!)  cookies for the first time - eatables. A little puzzled with “talked of” in the clue as it seemed a double definition without a homophone element, but I may have missed something (Later: I did!). “Lover boys talked of these Italian cookies” (Later,  Answer is AMARETTI, I think as “these” Italian cookies so there is a homophone, the lover boys “talked of” as Colin has explained, thanks to him)

11 NOIS(om)E Tricky - out of order means take away OM = Order of Merit

12 MINOR SUIT “Miner” Clubs is a minor suit in the card game bridge.

13 SLEEVE NOTES ! Favourite clue.

17 R ((ASTAF) ARIA) N Good misleading context with RN = Royal Navy as the service, not one you pray at. (a fast)*

22 GIG UE EU gig< though gig, as a palindrome, does not change, the clue is perfectly sound.

23 DOORNAIL i = one in (Orlando)*

24 SIR I US I = (electric) current

26 SHO(t) GUN

DOWN

1 W (OMAN) ISH tour is a containment indicator

6 CARER Would need extra energy (=e) to give career = long-term work.

12 MINIS(T)ERIAL Lead for Tony = T Miniserial an adj from miniseries.

15 SING SING Notorious prison in New York sing = inform

16 ANDERSON Hidden - Anderson air raid shelters (WWII)

18 T (RADE) R Mostly ready = (read)* tr (abbrev) = transactions

19 ON FORM Or is it “in form”? After some thought settled for the former, but it’s a close-run thing and won’t know till tomorrow. I think both would fit “well” (Concise OED confirms) but “on” might fit the second part “where people often write personal details” just a little better, perhaps.

21 YONK(er)S Monarch = ER Yonkers a city of New York

Solving time approx 30 minutes.

I didn’t see any answers on my first glance through the clues, but managed to work out the anagram at 27ac and worked upwards steadily from there. As usual from Araucaria, some very inventive clues, and some of the cryptic indications are more word-fun than wordplay.

Across
1 DODGE THE COLUMN (month, cuddle ego)* - not a phrase I was familiar with, and even after correctly identifying the anagram fodder quite early, I could make nothing of it until I had nearly all the crossing letters.
9 OVERT,”I’M ER”
10 WAND,A - not sure where the flower comes in, but the fish is from the film “A Fish Called Wanda”
11 IBSEN - replacing U,PROF with S in Ibuprofen.
13 TOREADOR - i.e. To read or not to read?
17 E,S,PIED - using “in” as “next to”, a favourite Araucarian trick. I think there’s some justification in the dictionary, but I can’t remember it at the moment.
19 THREE-PLY - varies slightly from “the reply”.
22 COOK,STOUR - The Cook Strait splits the North and South Islands of New Zealand. Strange to have this answer again so soon - it was also in yesterday’s puzzle.
26 CRITERION - double meaning/cryptic definition. Touchstone is a character in As You Like It, which might be on at the Criterion Theatre (although not recently).
27 LONG IN THE TOOTH (light not hot one)* - first one I got!

Down
1 DROP IN THE OCEAN - I had ?C?A? for the last word very early, but couldn’t get SCRAP out of my head. One of the last ones I put in.
3 EXTENUATE - EX=from,TEN(10),U(-turn),ATE(8 (say)) - I suppose the circumstances also affect the order of the wordplay!
6,4 LE,WIS/H,A,MILTON - currently leading the F1 Championship, if anyone’s wondering “Who?”
8 PAR,DON,MY FRENCH - “mon” being French for MY.
16 S(HARP,IS)H
18,20 P(ROB,ON,O/P)UB,LICO(coil*) - took a while to realise that the PUB at the front of PUBLICO wasn’t the tavern in the wordplay.
21 TOUCAN - “Two can”…