Weekend FT Prize Puzzle from October 25
A splendid puzzle this week from Cincinnus. I especially like 21A, 23A and 14D.

Across
1. ORWELL - OR (men?) + WELL (satisfactory)
4. BROMATES - anagram of BEAR MOST. Oh, come on Cincinnus, surely you could come up with something better than this!
10. BROADLOOM - anagram of LOAD in BROOM
11. ROMEO - ROME (capital) + O (letter from old)
12. TOGO - double definition
13. UNGROUNDED - GNU (animal) backwards + ROUNDED (turned)
15. NEEDLES - NEEDLES[s]. Is this a reference to anaesthesia by acupuncture?
16. EGRESS - SERGE (material) backwards + S[tage]
19. ENTRAP - anagram of PARENT
21. AUTOPSY - A (a) + U (fashionable) + TOPSY (girl). And a wonderful cryptic definition!
23. ARTICULATE - anagram of CURTAIL TEA
25. NUDE - anagram of UND[i]E[s]
27. MADAM - palindrome
28. CARETAKER - double definition
29. SARGEANT - homophone
30. EMERGE - E (eastern) + G[osling] in MERE (lake)

Down
1. ORBITING - OR (or) + BITING (piercing)
2. WOOD GREEN - WOO (court) + anagram of GENDER. What a fine anagram indicator.
3. LEDA - reverse hidden word
5. REMORSE - RE (note) + MORSE (inspector)
6. MARGUERITE - ARGUER (one in contention) in MITE (small child)
7. TIMID - TIM (chap) + I (one) + D[rive]
8. SWORDS - hidden word
9. POUNDS - double definition
14. ILFRACOMBE - anagram of A CLIMBER OF
17. SAPSUCKER - SAP (fool) + SUCKER (fool)
18. BY GEORGE - B[o]Y GEORGE
20. PELICAN - LI (large one) in PECAN (tree)
21. ACTORS - anagram of CAST OR
22. LAMMAS - M[alaysian] in LAMAS (monks in Asia)
24. TUDOR - TU (in Versailles you) + ROD (stick) backwards
26. ATOM - A (a) + TOM (cat)

A pleasant solve today with some enjoyable clues, as we have come to expect from this setter, except perhaps for 8d (as noted below) and 17d (which I can’t yet explain). Why is it that there always seems to be one Cinephile clue that I cannot parse? Edit: I now have an explanation for 17d - see comment #7.

A minor Shakespearean theme and the usual (for Cinephile) cricket term.

Across

1 CLANGOUR  homophone of ‘clanger’ - ‘to drop a brick = ‘to drop a clanger’ = ‘to make a mistake’
5 ICECAP  PACE CI reversed
10 EXPRESS  dd
11 OLIVIER  I in OLIVER - Sir Lawrence Olivier
12 SWAIN  S WAIN (second on wagon) and cd -  ‘authority on boat’ = ‘boatswain’, the foreman of a crew (warrant officer in the navy) 
13 TRUMP CARD  T RUMP CAR D
14 HORSE TRADING cd - there is an annual fair in Appleby, Cumbria where horses are bought and sold
18 FIELD MARSHAL  FIELD MARS HAL - ‘Prince Hal’ in Shakespeare’s Henry V
21 BACKWATER  BACK TE (Lawrence) in WAR
23 ALOOF  A LOO (comfort zone) F[ar]
24 ELEANOR  [th]E LEAN OR - presumably the Duchess of Gloucester in Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part 2 who practiced witchcraft but I don’t know the play well enough (read ‘not at all’) to know how the ‘cross’ comes in.
Edit: Please see Octofem’s comment #2 for the correct interpretation of ‘cross woman’
25 TITANIA  TIT AN I A - more Shakespeare, this time Midsummer Night’s Dream
26 KITTEN  KIT TEN
27 SHARE OUT  *(OUR HEATS)

Down

1 CHEESE  cd - ‘VIP’ = ‘big cheese’ and ‘hard cheese’ = ‘bad luck’
2 APPEAL  homophone of ‘a peal’
3 GREENWOOD  dd
4 UNSATISFACTORY  U *(SAINTS) FACTORY
6 CRISP  CRISP[in] - the Battle of Agincourt was fought on St Crispin’s Day (25 October) in 1415. Another Shakespeare reference as he wrote Saint Crispin’s Day Speech.
7 CLIMATIC  homophone of ‘climb attic’
8 PARADIGM  PARAD[e] I GM - GM (Grand Master) = ‘top chess player’ but then there is no source for the ‘I’ so perhaps ‘I’ is indicated by ‘top’ (first) and GM is simply ‘chess player’.
9 NOT UP TO SCRATCH  cd
15, 20 AS A MATTER OF FACT  AMAT in ASTER OFF ACT - ‘amat’ is the third person singular (he, she or it) for ‘loves’ in Latin
16 OFF BREAK  OFF BREAK - the customary cricket term
17 TEA CHEST  - the definition is ‘leaves container’ but I don’t see the wordplay at the moment. Edit: see comment #7.
19 BORNEO  *(OBERON) - see 25a
22 WINCE  WIN CE - is ‘establishment’ a fair indication for ‘CE’?

A good puzzle. There may be a couple of old chestnuts (e.g., 26ac) but many clues for even familiar and often-encountered words (e.g., EXPRESS) have been given a new twist. The surface reading of many clues is absolutely smooth and so very plausible: solvers deal with the components and the result of the action is something more than mechanical: they get a pleasurable sensation, a sense of satisfaction.   

I must confess that at the moment of writing I have three to go - 12 and 20ac and 21dn (all short words!) - but my blog cannot wait.

Across

1 MARMALADE - container/contained - mar(ma,lad)e - jam in the sense of road block

6 SMART - charade - SM, art

9 MOTET - reversal - moT ET < Lawrence Thomas are two individuals

10 PUPPETEER - c/c - p(up,pet)eer - you solve the clue upon seeing the words ‘up’ and ‘lapdog’ and with the def. “performer”. Only later you discern the actual wordplay and the beautiful coalescing of the components.

11 DETERMINED - charade - deter, mine, d - “colliery director”, like “Lawrence Thomas”, needs to be looked at as separate words 

12 (Not solved)

14 HABITAT - anagram - (Tabitha)*

15 SALIENT - c/c - sa(lien)t

17 ACETONE - cha. - ace, tone

19 PITCHER - two defintions

20 (Not solved)

22 DISPLEASED - c/c - dis(pl.)eased - As in 10 ac, the answer comes first and the justification (and aha!) later

25 EXTRACTOR - cha. - extra, (-a)ctor - Hope it was the tooth that the dentist pulled.

26 AGAIN - cha. - a, gain

27 STERN - cha. - s,tern

28 DISPENSER - cha. - Di, Spenser (of The Faerie Queene fame) 

Down

1 MIMED - hidden - from hippopatiMI MEDitating - In ‘of’ we probably have a weak hidden indicator, but the surface reading is so smooth that you don’t immediately realise that this is a hidden clue.

2 ROTATABLE - cha. - rota, table

3 ALTERATION - deletion - alter(-c)ation

4 APPOINT - cha. with rev. - ap<, point

5 EXPRESS - cha. - ex, press

6 STEW - rev. - stew <

7 ARENA - cha. with rev. - are na< - if you are not happy about substituting ‘an’ for ‘a’, read “a time” as “an era” and then do the reversal operation

8 TORMENTOR - c/c - tor(men)tor

13 ALL THE RAGE - anag. - (large lathe)*

14 HEARTLESS - cha. - H.E., artless (from Frank, ignoring the fake capitalisation)

16 EPHESIANS - anag. (Ian’s sheep) - “A New Testament book containing the epistle from Saint Paul to the Ephesians which explains the divine plan for the world and the consummation of this in Christ” (WordWeb)

18 EVICTED - c/c with anag. - evic(t)ed* - Good wordplay - Surface reading might probably be better with “that” between “out” and “strange” or even between “device” and “keeps”

19 PAPYRUS - anag. - (Ray’s pup)* 

21 (Not solved)

23 DONOR - c/c - do(N)or - Chess notation for knight is N

24  VAIN - homophone - “vein”

With apologies for the tardy posting. Especially as I thought this was a really well-balanced and cohesive puzzle that merits plaudits or discussion. The surface readings in particular were what caught my eye. With just a quick glance at the page now, I can see 4A, 28A and 17D as examples of such. Here’s hoping Alberich becomes a more regular fixture in the FT firmament; he’s definitely more of a craftsman and more deserving than one or two of the incumbents.

Across
1M,ALICE
4 A,BRA(S’I)VE
10 T[-h]ANKFUL - not tricky, but admirably constructed.
11 CUT,LASS
12 ROAD - “One for the….”
13 ANNE BOL,EYN - (Lebanon)* + (yen)*. A laugh out loud definition for this solver.
15 SE,TOUT
16 CO(LONE)L - another great surface.
20 C(R)OY,DON
21 RELIEF - double def’n
24 CHARI(TA)BLE - Unusually, the self-referential item (Alberich) is anagram fodder, rather than a pronoun indicator.
26 EURO - a bit hoary
28 ILL,E,GAL
30 GRAN,DEST - alternate letters from “adversity”.
31 BREEZE - homophone of “brie’s”

Down
1 M,OTORIST - (risotto)* - probably the clunkiest (or most surreal) clue of the bunch.
2 LA(N,CAST)ER - another well-rounded surface.
3 C,U,FF
5 BACHELOR - cryptic def’n.
6 ASTRONOMER - (moon, star, er)*. Sprinkling in some &lit, to boot.
7 I’M,AGE - a humdrum grid-filling word, but handled decently.
8 ESSEN,E - a word familiar to anyone who’s ever attempted more than a couple of barred puzzles.
9 BLUNT - double def’n.
14 JURY RIGGED - double def’n.
17 ETIQU,ETTE - (quite)*. “Content of letter” to indicate the second part is a nifty device.
18 CO,RAC(L)ES -This time (unlike 16A), “company” reverts to its more traditional wordplay role.
19 OF COURSE - (ferocious)* - i.
22 I [-t]CHING
23 PLUSH - i.e if “penniless”, it’d still be lush.
25 ALLOA - hidden
27 TEAR - double def’n

Plenty to think about today.  The answers came fairly quickly but not always the explanations. 30a misled
me for a few minutes - I trust I now have it right.  Likewise 31a. No obvious theme but there is a fair amount of Eastern promise and a couple of animals.

ACROSS

1.     LOCUST - (’lust’ around ‘oRDINARY.cITY’ - locusts formed one of the plagues of Egypt.).
4.     KEYBOARD - (’key’ [vital -' board' Thanks to Geoff for this correction from 'Pegboard'.  Silly me!))
9.     ISRAEL - ( * i learNs - 'n' removed as end of TRADITIOn)
10.   NAGASAKI - (cd - nag a Saki.  SAKI was the pen name of Hector Hugh Monroe, a master
                             of short story writing at turn of the 19/20th century.)
12.   BRUSH OFF - (bISHOP-rush off.  if you give someone the brush-off you dismiss them)
13.   UPSHOT  - ( up-shot.  If you appear before a magistrate you are 'up' before the bench.
                               a motion picture is 'shot' or 'filmed'.)
15.   CHAD - ('hOT' within 'cad')
16.  GAZELLE - ( gaze-ll-eNGLISH)
20.  QUALITY - ( 'quay' around 'lit' as in 'The butterfly lit on a rose.')
21.  TOFU - (first letters of tHING oRIENTAL fOODIES uSE)
25.  OCCUPY - (o-c-cup-y)
26.  PROLIFIC -(prolE-if-i-c.  'Prole' is a term for worker or member of the working class)
28.  BOUNDARY - ( the inevitable cricket clue.  A boundary counts for four runs)
29.  INJURE - ( in -jurY-CASe)
30.  TRESPASS - (Tres- p- as-s.  'Tres'[with grave accent]- French (spoken in Nancy, Lorraine) for very -
                                 ‘ p’ for quiet - as [when] -sECOND.  This held me up for a while as I pursued
                                  ladies called Nancy and effeminate gentlemen!)
31.  RANDOM - ( Again I tried ‘romany’ and ‘nomad’ but believe it is simply ‘an - d’ within ‘rom’.)

DOWN

1.    LAID BACK - (’ l-aid- ‘back’ - football position.)
2.    CAROUSAL - ( ‘usa’ within ‘carol’ .  ‘carousal’ definition: ‘a noisy revel, drinking bout.’
3.    SEETHE -(’ see-t-h-IS eXCELLENCY’. Not too happy about ’see’ for ‘escort’ although an usher
                             sees someone to a seat.)
5.    EVAN  - (L-evan-T.  The place where the sun rises,i.e. The East, as well as the Mediterranean area
                                        given this name)
6.    BEANPOLE - ( *open lab-eUROPEAN)
7.    APATHY - ( a-pat-hOSTELRy)
8.    DAINTY - ( da-in-Sty.  fastidiously neat)
11.  AFFABLE - (a-ff-able)
14.  TEXTURE- (text-ure (Text as now used for writing message on mobile phone + river in Yorkshire.
                                The feel of a fabric etc.)
17.   PUMPED UP -( pp [Public prosecutor] around u-mp-*due)
18.   CONFOUND - ( co-n-f-o-und)
19.   SUN CREAM - (* cruise man- without ‘i’)
22.   WOMBAT- (’womb-<TA’ - Womb where life is created, TA - territorial army.
                             a wombat is a short-legged marsupial)
23.   SCOUSE - ( s-c-ouse.  Pickle as in soused herring.  Amusing after yesterday’s
                               discussion of regional accents!!!
24.   GLINKA- (g-link-a - Mikhael Glinka,influential Russian composer.  There is a music prize named after

       him. Past winners have included Boridin and Rimsky-Korsakov.) 

27. EROS - (hidden in Hero=sHUNNING. Greek love-God)