Daily Answers

1-across – Writer fin de siècle? : PENURY

4-across – How a Roman Oedipus stated his problem? Grains of Paradise? : AMOMUM

9-across – Food for caterpillar : GRUB

10-across – Plenty of piety without love : GOODLINESS

11-across – Sailor’s tale backing sort of comedown : ABSEIL

12-across – Referring to recent arrival of gas at a lake : NEONATAL

13-across – Ironed over again : REPRESSED

15-across – Only the sound of music? : SOUL

16-across – Vote without sufficient leaders : RAGE

17-across – Disputed books causing an explosion without call for Heavy Artillery : APOCRYPHA

21-across – Computing system without disk in good health : CROMWELL

22-across – See if you can go as fast as I to get an inflorescence : RACEME

24-across – Old-fashioned sentimentality with group work by aliens? : CORNCIRCLE

25-across – Motor race makes the frightened lose head : INDY

26-across – Sun city? If only! : SOLELY

27-across – Georgian student mired in pollution : STALIN

1-down – Talks French about first two in Bible story : PARABLE

2-down – Good rise for the French : NOBLE

3-down – Star concerned with drawback : REGULUS

5-down – Small length with great weight : MILTON

6-down – Male lawman conservative? Has to be : MANDATORY

7-down – Fell into the grinder : MISCALL

8-down – Horse force, possible completion due : MOUNTEDPOLICE

14-down – Concerned with diet and exercise making one malinger : REGIMINAL

16-down – Puts new cover on for rose show : REROOFS

18-down – Flower as present … : CURRENT

19-down – …. some of which died, eaten by bird : HAMPDEN

20-down – Ealing production : GENIAL

23-down – Complaint about elevation : CHILL

1-across – Film valet Valentino sacked : NATIONALVELVET

9-across – Song and dance about university retirement : ROUNDELAY

10-across – Flat race leader dropped out of very fast : VAPID

11-across – Horse and cart back to front? It’s monstrous : HYDRA

12-across – Cheese straw’s started to become old hat : SAGEDERBY

13-across – Passed open hole all right : OVERTOOK

14-across – Mongrel incorporating a new genetic variation : MUTANT

17-across – Party right to the end in Tennessee bar : TAVERN

19-across – Open club in 2011, if club then not open : SANDWICH

22-across – Fellow in RAF wrote about what he took part in? : WAREFFORT

24-across – Toke finally taken from joint? Pass on to another : REFER

25-across – Wrong road for the mountain : SINAI

26-across – Language from bridge player shortly to end up in one club doubled : ICELANDIC

27-across – Very angry son goes off film : BLAZINGSADDLES

1-down – Oddly no new direction for bygone film? : NORTHNORTHWEST

2-down – Bowl along right round North Dakota lake : TRUNDLE

3-down – Painting interior of woman’s extension : OLDMASTER

4-down – Hint of troubled soul in LA : ALLUSION

5-down – Part of the gay Ovidian’s uphill journey : VOYAGE

6-down – Furious little girl wearing hat : LIVID

7-down – Stores spread around Rome and Pisa, not opening Sundays : EMPORIA

8-down – Film girl going up and down rising river on a Chester outing : ADAYATTHERACES

15-down – Roughly a hundred keeping name secret : UNDERHAND

16-down – Growths worrying Kate and Rose : OAKTREES

18-down – Italian city lights, initially hypnotic : VERONAL

20-down – Disbeliever took the initiative, providing part of UK’s upturn : INFIDEL

21-down – Poet no expert in advertising : MOTION

23-down – Fine hotel for a cat : FRITZ

9-across – Precipitation from big guns having gone overboard? : RAINWATER

10-across – Key line that follows 10/5 : IVORY

11-across – Officer protected by total cover : SHELTER

12-across – Deadly stuff when bum’s not quite pleasant : ARSENIC

13-across – Come out from opening in shade : HATCH

14-across – Tiny passage through marine deposit’s material : CORPOREAL

16-across – Flexible soldiers rubbish no one in retreat for making up deficiencies : SUPPLEMENTATION

19-across – Bond will be there in seconds with this : SUPERGLUE

21-across – Close up includes head of pretty bit of flower : SEPAL

22-across – Weapon is stable without lug : FIREARM

23-across – Breaking bones in religious invocation : BENISON

24-across – Cause partners to hold hand between them : SPAWN

25-across – Very wicked to fire on USA at will : NEFARIOUS

1-down – Artificial part where call girl’s the little sister? : PROSTHESIS

2-down – Dodge south despite going west : SIDESTEP

3-down – Replace shag? : SWITCH

4-down – Raised animals to take lead : STAR

5-down – Schedule back-breaking crash at movie’s finale : PREARRANGE

6-down – Spreading operations during an attack from below : DIASPORA

7-down – Nothing having external forward thrust is idle : LOUNGE

8-down – Said to go down in unison : SYNC

14-down – Observation about split lip being flatter : COMPLIMENT

15-down – Desolation as Nelson lies in state : LONELINESS

17-down – Accumulated knowledge covering fall of French region : LORRAINE

18-down – I pretend I’m after gold : IMPOSTOR

20-down – One that’s cut off hair appears content with rejection : PARIAH

21-down – More than one thing to do with tomatoes? : SUNDRY

22-down – Don’t eat quickly! : FAST

23-down – Fan without a stitch in this : BUFF

1-across – Round of Golf here: item in Kent College prospectus : SANDWICHCOURSE

8-across – These growths have their points : CACTI

9-across – Rents due to be rendered without relief : UNRESTED

11-across – Opt for the return of gold plate : ELECTRO

12-across – In France no one in the field is able to stay fast : NONSLIP

13-across – Irish activist is out of condition : PROVO

15-across – Silly fellow poked bard in rib : BIRDBRAIN

17-across – Blend basil into alcoholic drinks : LIBATIONS

20-across – Like a bore, the boy brings it back : TIDAL

21-across – Mountains of wine in Tuscany : CHIANTI

23-across – The conductor’s card : MAESTRO

25-across – Save bread! An angel will do it : BANKROLL

26-across – Good Lord! Few spoke here : CORFU

27-across – Picture of Patience in file of recruits : JOBDESCRIPTION

1-down – Guards on the Underground? : SECRETPOLICE

2-down – Just the job for the corner-man! : NICHE

3-down – Stylish cover for a laptop! : WAISTCOAT

4-down – A Frenchman’s charge for electricity : COULOMB

5-down – One finds why people are late : CORONER

6-down – Yours only houses a porcupine : URSON

7-down – Weighing machine exposed crooked deal with tyres : STEELYARD

10-down – The backbone of a porcupine? : SPINALCOLUMN

14-down – Essential accompaniment moved Gobbi a lot : OBBLIGATO

16-down – Cow, perhaps, a pest on the lawn : BUTTERCUP

18-down – Sinister contents of room in ’ouse of ’orrors : OMINOUS

19-down – One who gets the taste for embroidery : SAMPLER

22-down – Bare, with no arms : NAKED

24-down – Rat is gnawing bones : TARSI

9-across – Weaving fibres conceal small boy, one with big flowers : RAFFLESIA

10-across – Letters from Athens read out in capital : CAIRO

11-across – Wood, a funny man about what he was : AMBOYNA

12-across – The last sort of tax to be unveiled? : STEALTH

13-across – Wood cutter when drunk? : SHAW

14-across – English painter enters American joint for a little measure : MICROMETER

15-across – Pious people faint after Shia’s conversion : HASIDIM

17-across – Pious person’s joke about educated woman : PURITAN

19-across – See 24 : BRASSBOUND

22-across – Drink like a fish? : BASS

23-across – Tune to get higher, but end with a drop : AIRLIFT

24-across – Follow acknowledgement in money before spring being converted in 13 3 for 17 acrosses : CAPTAIN

26-across – Was coming back to cook : DEVIL

27-across – Work — artwork — in lacework requires needlewoman : CLEOPATRA

1-down – Model studies Shakespeare : TREADSTHEBOARDS

2-down – Holidaying with long-haired weirdies in bars, not stressed : OFFBEATS

3-down – Hamlet’s thing to do with 25 : PLAY

4-down – Thinking of avoiding the unpleasant spectacles, am I? : ESCAPISM

5-down – Operation with 27 in 13 3 for 17 acrosses : CAESAR

6-down – Noisy bird, with possibly unfinished crest, half American! : SCREAMER

7-down – Quarter note? : BILLET

8-down – Traditional feast of Wagner’s work gets us up into its sequel : MOTHERINGSUNDAY

16-down – Learner of 26, 13 3 for 17 acrosses : DISCIPLE

17-down – Chosen article being inserted, lost head : PANICKED

18-down – Still climbing, holding by oneself a social gathering : TEAPARTY

20-down – Come into prominence somewhere near river : ARRIVE

21-down – Choose to upset leaders of science, for one : OPTICS

25-down – Conductor of Water Music hence : PIPE