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)*

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.