Solving time 20:19

Araucaria’s certainly on form today. A great 28-letter anagram at 1A,8D and a lot of other very clever clues made this a real pleasure to solve. I don’t think there was anything to really grate with my Ximenean sympathies either, apart from “some x” meaning “the first (unspecified number of) letters of x”, used a couple of times in 9 and 22. There seems to be a lot of General Knowledge required to solve this one, hence the large number of Wikipedia links.

Across
1,8D THAT’S THE WAY THE COOKIE CRUMBLES (she makes with buttery chocolate)* - Starting off with a 28-letter anag &lit., I just knew this was going to be good.
9 EN(LIV)EN - NENE around VIL(lages) all rev.
10 LO,CAR NO - where a lot of treaties were signed after the end of WW1.
12 RO(A,ST,PO)RK(e) - ref. Rorke’s Drift, site of the famous battle in the Zulu War. The River Po in Italy is easily the most-used non-English river in cryptics.
13 FATHE(r),ADED(dead*)
15 U.N.,MAN - Ban Ki-Moon is current Secretary-General of the UN.
17 COM,P(L)ETER - I like COM for “Dot’s follower”. PETER is slang for a safe, not sure why. Is it rhyming slang? Naturally none of us bloggers use crossword completers, do we? (he says, looking around shiftily…)
20 HAR(D)COURT - ref. Port Harcourt in Nigeria.
22 OP.1,UM - first piece is OP.1, i.e. Opus 1, followed by MU rev. (some MUsical).
25 SMOKELESS ZONES (Seeks,zoom lens’s)* - nice definition, July being when the smoking ban came into force in England.

Down
1,21 TWENTY,F(OUR,H,OUR,C)LOCK - “Guardian’s” is often OUR.
2 A,ILMEN,T(rade) - I’d never heard of Lake Ilmen, but what else could it be?
3,4 SEVENTEEN HUNDRED - according to Wikipedia, the War of the Spanish Succession began in 1701, but the problem started in 1700. I’m not sure why “shadow time” is 5pm though - surely that depends on the time of year and the weather conditions!
5 WELL,AND - The River Welland in East Anglia.
6 (twent)Y,ACHT - acht being German for eight. I already had 1,8 and 20 when I looked at this, so I wasn’t fooled for a minute by the seeming reference to other clues. Well, not much more than a minute…
7 H(A.R.P.)OON - ARP stands for Air Raid Precautions. Geoff Hoon is the cabinet minister (currently Chief Whip, formerly Defence Secretary).
14 WOLF,O(WIT)Z - Paul Wolfowitz, former head of the World Bank.
16 M(A(R)XIS)M - the Axis powers were the enemy in WW2.
17 CHUN(NE)L - NE inside lunch* - nickname for the Channel Tunnel.
18 MAT,TINS - normally spelt with only one T.
19 TRINI(ty),AN - I think. St. Trinian’s is a fictional girls’ school famous from a series of films in the 50’s and 60’s, and a new remake coming out later this year.

There’s always lots of fun to be had with a puzzle by Punk (or Paul) and this was no exception.

Quite a tricky puzzle with some novel features.    More verifying needed than usual.     Will concentrate on what I found the trickier or more unusual clues, but happy to explain any other if asked.

Solving time: 23 mins

* = anagram

ACROSS

1  DA (GO) B A      From Buddhism

7 M (ON) AD     The number one

10 GREAT MISSENDEN   (designers meant)*

13 TEA M   I think the clue number is part of the clue here   “One may have” in Rugby League, for one.     tea = light meal

DOWN

3 BEDMAKER    This refers to an apple-pie bed made up as a prank.

14 P (EA GRE) EN   Pen = author is v common.     eagre = wave is less so.    Setter could have used ‘agree’ but this might have been less friendly for the surface reading.

18 S AILING    Pre-decimal (1971) currency.     Shilling (abbrev s) = 5p in today’s money, colloquially known as a ‘bob’

20 K ENYA    The five Ks are a Sikh symbol, Enya a singer

21 H (A) AR   Half of Harlem, if I’ve got this right

Following two Weekend FT puzzles that I fairly sailed through, Mudd gave me a bit of a challenge with this one. As usual, it was a satisfying challenge. I did however fail to understand one clue (14D) although I fancy I got the right answer for it.

Across
1. JARGON - JAR (drink) + GON[e]
4. LAMPPOST - “note” could be G or IOU but is LA, “member” could be ARM or LEG but is MP, “office” could be DUTY or possibly DEN but is POST, and setter could be MUDD but is a dog. (Unless of course, Mudd has habits we don’t know about!)
10. TEDDY BEAR - EDDY (boy) + B (band’s first) in TEAR (cry)
11. RIFLE - double definition
12. LOAF - double definition. (If you didn’t get this one then you weren’t using your ____!)
13. PAINKILLER - anagram of IN PERIL + [w]ALK. A little difficult but fortunately there’s not a huge number of medications one would expect to find in a crossword.
15. CAPITAL - double definition
16. MYSORE - MY (Mudd’s) + SORE (suffering). A city where I did the opposite of suffer!
19. STREAM - ST[reet] (the way) + REAM (papers)
21. REVENUE - EVEN (still) in RUE (French way)
23. LEFT-WINGER - cryptic definition
25. ARIA - A (a) + AIR (song) backwards
27. NADIR - hidden word
28. AGINCOURT - A (a) + GIN (trap) + COURT (invite). A lovely succinct clue.
29. KNEE-DEEP - NEED (requirement) in KEEP (castle)
30. BENDER - slightly cryptic double definition

Down
1. JET BLACK - anagram (new) of BELT in JACK (boy)
2. RED CARPET - RED (communist) + CARPET (reprimand)
3. ONYX - ON (touching) + Y and X (axes)
5. ACRONYM - A + CRONY (friend) + M[isconstrue]
6. PERMISSIVE - PER (for each) + MISSIVE (letter)
7. OFFAL - OFF (sour) + AL[e] (drink).
8. THEORY - HE (man) in TORY (blue)
9. DERAIL - anagram (perhaps) of REDIAL
14. OTHER WORLD - or is it? I am unsure about this one. “Elderly claiming the right” gives us ORLD but where does OTHERW come from and what has “queue” to do with it? Okay, we could get OTHER out of “for the” but I still cannot see the whole thing.
17. RUN-AROUND - double definition
18. DECANTER - CAN (some beer) in DETER (stop)
20. MANDATE - MAN (staff) + DATE (appointment)
21. RE-EDIT - REED (rush) + IT (it)
22. PLANCK - homophone for PLANK (wood)
24. FUDGE - double definition
26. ACHE - [c]ACHE (valuable collection)

(Hope PaulB isn’t reading this since I’m late again). Another fine Paul opus – some surprising and refreshing wordplay (e.g. 7D, 1A) and sly definitions (e.g. 25A). I did this early morning but have only found time now to write it up. I will write an apologue at some point justifying myself.