Guardian Prize. Sat 14Th April. Parsing ....

[plutocrat]

Well I filled it all in, but really struggling to parse a lot of clues, which I find to be an unsatisfactory conclusion to the crossword. Any lightbulbs out there?

ACROSS
9 Primarily Best Mate wins only finest cups? (4,5)
BONE CHINA. Got B and CHINA=Mate. How does the ONE get there?
10 Trotter not in state that's conscious (5)
AWAKE. No idea why
19 Covering racing ground, initially going inside old Bob Champion (7)
SURFACE. No idea why.
26 Contact English bloke by phone (5)
EMAIL. No idea why. E for English then ...
29 Advanced training, driver reversing out (6)
ASLEEP. No Idea why.

DOWN
8 Large animals in soft conditions finally getting round circuit (6)
HIPPOS. Didn't like the parsing

20 Settles the night before partners get excited (5,2)
EVENS UP. No idea why.

[Jackdaw33]

One -only

[Jackdaw33]

Mail sounds like male (by phone)

[Jackdaw33]

Eve - the night before NS (north south, partners in bridge) Up (excited).

[JJ109]

10 AWARE (not awake)
DEL(trotter) removed from Delaware (state) = aware (conscious)

[JJ109]

Surface (covering) = Turf (racing ground) "minus" T (initial going) = URF "in S (shilling ie Old Bob) + Ace (Champion)

[JJ109]

ASLEEP (out) = A(dvanced) + "backwards" PE (training) ELS (Ernie Els golfer therefore "driver")

[JJ109]

Hippos (large animals) = HIP (in/fashionable) + P(soft ie music/piano) + S (final letter of conditions) + O(round) "inside p&S/circuit"

[Jackdaw33]

Hip (in, with it) P (soft) S (last letter of conditions) containing O (circuit)

[Jackdaw33]

I should have just left it to JJ. That's another 5 minutes of my life I won't get back.

[JJ109]

Sorry JD - but if you only took 5 minutes for these you are lucky.
Yesterday like Plutocrat I got all the answers fairly quickly, but some took ages to parse.

[plutocrat]

Thanks for putting me out of my misery. Some setters just seem to operate on a different wavelength to myself.