ACROSS

1,13. ONE-MAN BAND  Ne [born] within Oman [state] + band [sounds like banned, censored]

5. LANDMARK  Land [what Germany is] + mark [former German currency]

9. STARVE  R(ations) within stave [staff]

10. TEASPOON  Tea [drink] + spoon [club?]

11. CHANCE IT  Anagram of chicane + T(rulli)

12. SEDUCE  SE [south-east, location of the Home Counties] + duce [foreign dignitary]

13. See 1ac.

15. LORDLING  No idea, I’m afraid – help!

18. FORSOOTH  Hidden in prooF OR SO OTHers

19. SALE  Initial letters of Stock At Leeds Encouraging

21. PISTOL  Double definition: Pistol is Sir John Falstaff’s servant in The Merry Wives Of Windsor and elsewhere

23. NOTECASE  Anagram of see act on

25. LIVE UP TO  Live up [backward clue, meaning 'evil' reversed] + to

26. AMULET  Mule [animal] within a(ccoun)t

27. DEAD CERT  Dead [passed on] + cert(ificate) [award]

28. KEEPER  Reversal of re [about] peek [look]

DOWN

2. NOTCH  Hidden in hugueNOT CHurchman

3. MARINADES  AD [Anno Domini] within marines [sailors]

4. NEEDED  NE [north-east, direction] + repetition of ed [editor, reporter  (?)]

5. LET T ALL HANG OUT  All [everyone] within anagram of late night + out [known]

6. NOAHS ARK  Anagram of anoraks (watc)h

7. MOPED  Mope [despair] + d(aybreak)

8. ROOT CANAL  Root [encourage, cheer on] + canal [artificial work]

14. ABORIGINE  Origin [ancestry] within Abe [Abraham Lincoln]

16. LOST CAUSE Anagram of cassoulet

17. COLLAPSE  Co [company] + l [left] + lapse [decline]

20. ATTACK  Sounds like a tack [change of a ship's course]

22. TREAD  T [time] + read [study]

24. SWEDE  Anagram of widespread minus the letters of rapid

This was an entertaining puzzle with a mix of complex and simple wordplay.  At the complex end of the spectrum we had the build for FATHER CHRISTMAS  and DEFINITE ARTICLE, whilst at the simpler end there was HALITE and TORMENTOR.  In between there was a good range of clue devices, a number of which required some lateral thinking.  I liked the clues for CELLINI, MALTA,  WEBSITE and SQUARED.  Having said that, there were also one or two clues, including one I for an entry I have already listed above where I struggled with the parsing or the definition.  Examples given in the detailed table below are ELECT, DEFINITE ARTICLE and TRAGEDIAN.  In each case it was clear what the entry had to be, so perhaps I am nitpicking.

Like many puzzles these days, there was a message in the grid.  Columns 1 and 15 reveal the message  FIFTEENSQUARED SUPREME WEBSITE.  I toyed with including the top and bottom rows in the theme as well with images of FATHER CHRISTMAS delivering us a super WEBSITE, and describing the WEBSITE as the DEFINITE ARTICLE, but I think that is trying to stretch the theme too far.  If DEFINITE had been DEFINITIVE there might have been a stronger case.  

While the contributors to this site will no doubt endorse the sentiments expressed in this final grid, I will be fascinated to how well the wording of the last column will be received by contributors to a national daily crossword website where the debate often moves on to The Independent puzzles once the puzzle at the centre of that site has been thoroughly analysed, digested and on some days, spat out.  A number of the contributors there are not fans of the decorum of FIFTEENSQUARED even though one or two of them admit to coming here sometimes to understand specific parsing.

As is common with good crossword puzzles the clue material today covered an eclectic mix of general knowledge.  We needed to know about or be aware of a bit of heavy metal, cookery, crockery, sports, chemistry, art and music in a number of guises, trucking. travel, geography, roman numerals and current affairs

I look forward to blogging another Klingsor puzzle some time.

Most Dante puzzles have at least one or two gems, but this one was rather standard – some might call it  “typical Monday fare”. Not much to complain about, not much that stands out either in this friendly crossword.

Definitions are underlined wherever appropriate.

While it sports a couple of fine clues — I would single out 11A (SADDLE-SORE) — I found this puzzle more of a challenge than a delight. I mean a good challenge, nothing bad!

Across
1. LEGION – double definition
4. SCARAB – SCAR (wound mark) + AB (type of blood)
8. TABASCO – TAB (label) + AS (as) + C (cold) + O (nothing)
9. DENSITY – SIT (rest) in DENY (decline)
11. SADDLE-SORE – anagram of LADDERS SO + [catastroph]E
12. IRON – I[panema] R[io] O[ffering] N[ibbles]
13. SMART – double definition
14. ARSONIST – SON (boy) + IS (is) together in ART (cunning)
16. DRAWBACK – WARD is ‘draw back’
18. CHAMP – double definition
20. AMMO – [g]AMMO[n] (knocking head and tail from pig)
21. CONTINGENT – G[oes] in CONTINENT (massive area)
23. SLIPWAY – LIP (impudence) in SWAY (power)
24. ANY ROAD – double definition. Originally I was unsure about ‘however’ as the definition here but am now satisfied that it is fine; see the comments below.
25. REEFER – double definition. A reefer is a type of jacket as well as a marijuana cigarette.
26. BLEACH – L (length) in BEACH (strand)

Down
1. LHASA – hidden word
2. GRANDPA – RAND (foreign money) in anagram of GAP
3. ORCHESTRA – anagram of HORSE CART
5. CRETE – [con]CRETE (‘con’ taken off real)
6. RUSSIAN – USSR (old country) with its R moved to the front + anagram of IN A
7. BOTTOMS UP – BOTTOM (last) + SUP (drink)
10. WOMANKIND – OMAN (country) + K (king) together in WIND (blow)
13. SCRAMBLER – double definition
15. SECTIONAL – anagram of CAT LESION
17. WHOOPEE – HOOP (band) in WEE (little)
19. ALGERIA – [b]L[o]G[g]E[r] (blogger oddly ignored) in ARIA (song),
21. CRATE – anagram of CAR + T[h]E (the gutted)
22. NEATH – hidden word

Old timers with find this easy, more of a ‘write in’ than a solve.  However, I would not say this is an easy crossword for everyone as there are some obscure words and devices that will be difficult if you have not seen them before (and remebered them from last time!).  A challenge to complete if you worked it all out for yourself.

Hold the mouse pointer over any clue number to read the clue.

*anagram

A brisk start in the top half allowed me to guess SYDNEY very early, but that soon petered out, and the bottom half looked decidedly sparse (apart from ZENANA, which strangely I knew). There was steady progress however, and about halfway through I’d solved enough down clues to hazard DRAMATIS PERSONAE from the misprinted letters. {At this point, I should say that I’d decided not to user an internet search engine, so D… P… didn’t help.} Also, I discovered that knowing the wrong letters isn’t nearly as useful as knowing the right ones in misprinted definitions.

The grid was filling up, and I’d guessed 7 of the 9 unclued entries, so I used the list of unchecked letters to get the rest. No link came to mind – just a bunch of male & female names, most of which could be either, but I suppose that the highlighting signified ‘pink for a girl, blue for a boy’. I dwelt on this for quite a while, then returned to the last couple of unsolved clues. CITIFY was the answer to one of them, and finally (finally!) I noticed that the five-character entry at 5d came from a seven-letter answer: so, RIBBAND it was, to be entered as RIBB&.

Coming back refreshed after a pre-lunch walk on Sunday, I scanned the weekend papers for significant anniversaries (to no avail) and then took The Oxford Companion to Eng.Lit. from the shelf to look up Dramatis Personae – and there it was, a collection of poems by Robert Browning; Chambers Biographical Dictionary informed me he was born on 07-May-1812, so Monday would be the bicentenary of his birth – the clincher. Men & Women and The Ring & the Book were two key works, and the former “loosely defined the unclued entries”; I put the latter on hold, and scanned RB’s entry in OCEL: SORDELLO jumped out (changing the B in BORDELLO) and then I spotted JOCOSERIA which would fit in the top row (changing an R in SERRATES). So, back to The Ring & the Book: starting from the “&” of 5d we can draw a ring clockwise through & THE BOOK. And we’re done.

What to make of “Characters”, the puzzle’s title? I’d noticed some time back that included in the grid were not only all the letters of the alphabet, but also the ampersand. I recalled from solving the recent puzzle by Hypnos (IQ 1222 “Joiner”) that in the past the alphabet would be recited as “A, B, C, …, X, Y, Z, and per se and“; so here we have a super-pangram. {Is that it?}

Great stuff from Shark, and hearty congrats. to him for his first Listener at the end of March.

Across
No.	Answer	…             …            …             …		Wordplay
1	JOCO	…             …            …             …		JOC(k) (Scot) + O(ld)
4	SERRATES	…             …            …             …		[ARRESTS]* around E(uropean)
8	ARARS	…             …            …             …		(realg)AR ARS(enic) &Lit.
10	IGNOMY	…             …            …             …		[WYOMING]* − W(ife)
11	CITIFY	…             …            …             …		CLASSIFY (sort) with IT for LASS (young lady)
12	BALLAD	…             …            …             …		BALL (dance) + AD (public notice)
13	BULB	…             …            …             …		BLUB (cry) rev.
14	SABIN	…             …            …             …		double definition {ref.: Albert Sabin, developer of oral polio vaccine}
16	IN MILK	…             …            …             …		INK (black liquid) around MIL(lilitre)
18	TIL OIL	…             …            …             …		TOIL (work) around IL (the, Italian) {24=BENNI=sesame}
20	PASEO	…             …            …             …		PAS(t) (ended) + EO (game)
21	MEHNDI	…             …            …             …		H(ard) in [DENIM]*
25	ESSENE	…             …            …             …		ESSENCE (spirit) − C(onvulse)
27	SODAS	…             …            …             …		SAD (sober) + OS (outsize, very large) rev.
28	ETCH	…             …            …             …		(f)ETCH (ghost, archaic)
30	SYLVAN	…             …            …             …		SYLVIA (warbler) − I(ndependence) + N(ight)
31	AXILLA	…             …            …             …		AX (cut, N Am) + ILL (badly) + A
32	ICE RUN	…             …            …             …		(off)ICER UN(covers)
33	QUOIN	…             …            …             …		QU(estion) + [IRON]* − R (recipe, take)
Down
No.	Answer	Definition	Misprint	Wordplay
2	ORIENT	once rising	D	O(ver) + T(horoughbred) after [REIN]*
3	ORIBI	buck in South Africa	R	BIRO (Hungarian designer) rev. + I(taly)
5	RIBBAND	strip	A	RIB (bone) + BAND (finger-ring)
6	ANLAGEN	primordia in nature	M	[ALGAE (a)N(d) N(uclear)]*
7	E-MAIL	message	A	E(nergy) + MAIL (spot, Scot)
9	ATOMISED	sprayed	T	A(bout) + TOM (cat) + [DIES]*
14	SETHS	in India, wealthy chaps	I	SET (staked) + HS (Home Secretary)
15	BORDELLO	dell, perhaps, in here {dell=prostitute}	S	[DOORBELL]*
17	LOOKS	sees	P	LOO (toilet) + K(now)S
19	LE HAVRE	French port	E	LEAVE (go) around H(otel) around (fai)R
20	PASSIM	high and low	R	PASS (cross) + I’M (I am)
22	INULIN	compound found in root	S	INSULIN (drug) − S(ulphur)
23	ZENANA	girls in this private Iranian room	O	NANA (idiot) after Z (unknown) + E(lectronic)
24	BENNI	seed	N	BENIN (African country) with I(nternational) later
26	SHIUR	stint studying the Talmud	A	[RUSH]* around I (one)
29	TAWT	in Scotland, mat	E	W(omen) in TAT (shabby clothes)