The only real stumbling block today for me was 18A, which took me several minutes of plodding through the alphabet until I could find an answer that justified the clue.  10A doesn’t work, in my opinion, but I’ll gladly stand corrected.

Across
1 P(ai)R,ECIN,CT - “over exact?” indicating the reversal of nice.
6 BOWSER - (rows be)*; I recall this word cropping up only a couple of months ago.  It’s a petrol pump Down Under.
10 THO,ROUGH - Interesting anagrind comparison between this clue and 17D. Here we have “Somewhat” which seems flaky to me (doesn’t it mean partially?), whereas in 17D we have “Somehow”, which doesn’t bother me. Are the two equally (in)valid?
11 SETA (hidden)
18 VISA - As mentioned, I had to take a trial and error approach to this one, being confronted with _I_A. The preposition here certainly helps the  ambiguity, as “get one in a state” rather than “…into a state” certainly had me foxed.
26 PORT,I,A - The only Portia I recall is from The Merchant of Venice.  I suppose she was acting as a “lawyer” with that whole “Quality of mercy is not strained…” spiel.
27 C(Y)P,HER - First time I’ve encountered CP as an abbreviation (for “Communist Party”).
28 ENSILAGE (gleans ie)*

Down
2 RE(E)VE - Unusual to see a foreign language element of the wordplay clued so directly (”French dream” = reve).
5 TOTAL ABSTINENCE - a succinct and effective cryptic treatment.
6 B,L,OTTO - Only when writing this, did I remember which Emperor was called Otto (Bismarck).
8 EIGHT,SOME - Not sure how to classify this type of clue. It’s along the lines of “take the wordplay elements and switch them”.
15 IN,I,T(I)ALLY
17 EXCERPTS (R in expects)*
25 NO,H - a useful three-letter word to bear in mind, as it can occasionally be seen as a sub-component in its own right
(e.g. “play”) in barred puzzles.

I found this very easy - no Chambers or Bradford needed. There were some difficult words in the puzzle (31A,19D) but I was helped on these by checking letters and the straightforward clueing.

Note: this is will be the last Beelzebub blog for a couple of weeks as I shall be away and won’t have much time for solving/blogging. Expect normal service to resume around puzzle 921.

I know with Bannsider that it will be tough and it was.    Got there in the end - one or two that I cannot fully see the wordplay.    Some very good clues as always.

Solving time:  54 mins

< = reverse  * = anagram

ACROSS

1 GI JOE   jig<   O(n)E     Got the answer long before the wordplay!

4 ST RUMMER’S    Axe = guitar

9 MUNCH   “Artist finding work through Apple?”   Sheer brilliance.

10 O VERV (ALU) E    Alu = aloo   Indian potato

12 CA R   ca = about = in the region of

13 KISS CURL   “Dog wrapped in silk’s lost some hair”  Excellent misdirection - cur in (silks)*

16 Jack LON(e) DON    See 1 across.     Don = reader

21 CORRECTS     rr for ll in collects

24 RUG   last letters      rhyming slang wig = syrup (of figs)

25 STEAM ROLLER     As, I think, a paddle boat would be powered by steam and ‘on a roll’ is a spell of success.

28 BILL Gates A BO (N) G

30 PA (U) L S  I MON(day)   I think that may be it - the U may come from a TV reference

DOWN

1   (GIM)M(IC)K (all <)      Very elaborate wordplay.     CI (Channel Islands)= Jersey and more.   km = short (ie abbrev) distance.   Mig = Miguel Indurain (cyclist).

2 JONESES    Definition is, I think, Neighbours competed with (keeping up with the Joneses) but I do not understand the wordplay “Neighbours 
competed with Emmerdale initially, getting in girls”

3 E(S)THER

5 RIETI   Alternate letters

6 MOV(I)E GOER

8 S (WEAR) IN     Defn is ‘admit using oath’

14 ICE   Am slang ice = total = kill

15 CROSS BARS

17 O PT    “Plump, lacking exercise?”   !

19 HARD B OP

20 Maya ANGELOU   e = people’s base in (Lugano)*

22 loCAL LINGo       ladies = loo

23 STRIKER

26 ENORM   cf e-Norm(an) Wisdom

27 OUT DO

A something-for-everyone puzzle from Monk. A few easy clues to get you going, some hard ones to stretch you, a bit of innovation here and there and some good old-fashioned smut. Not forgetting the ubiquious Nina of course, which is explained below at 5D. Bravo.

For once I tackled the Inquisitor on the day of publication, and, by lunchtime, it was finished. 

This wasn’t particularly diificult by Inquisitor standards, and would be a good puzzle for soomeone who wants to make the move from the more difficult daily puzzles into barred puzzles.

So what did we have to find in this puzzle?

27 across indicated a theme-word, so it would be nice to get that out of the way quickly.  Therefore I concentrated on finding the crossed words.  The first two clues I solved were 24dn TWITE and 23ac ERNE, both birds, but that didn’t turn out to be relevant.

The only common letter between the two words was E, so it was obvious that they had to be entered as ETWIT and EERN, given that the answers had to begin in a square OTHER than the first.

I worked my way around the south-east corner for a few minutes, and after placing a few more letters, I managed to work out that the answer to 27ac was CIRCLE LINE (the OI of the title).

I now had the theme, which also explained the “circular” clue entry method.  After completing more of the puzzle, I could see that I was being asked to fill in London Underground stations in the shaded border around the puzzle.  Given the checking letters that I had, and at last finding a use for the Underground map that is always printed in the back of my diary, I worked out that the stations were:-

FARRINGDON, MONUMENT, TEMPLE, WESTMINSTER and BAYSWATER

Cleverly, the settler had arranged them so that they ran in the correct order clockwise and they more or less coincided with their geographical locations.

This made solving much easier than I imagine it was to set the puzzle.

Most of the clues were fairly straightforward, and certainly not much more difficult than some that I have recently come across in Guardian and Times daily puzzles.

My favourites were:
ACROSS

10 DUD-IS-(bru)M(mel) - DUD referring of course to Dudley Moore, comedic partner of Peter Cook.

19 A-(bal)MORAL

DOWN

4 ST-AND

11 WOMENS LIB - (mine blows)*