Daily Answers

1-across – 5 down player and American writer, name of Lee : HARPER

5-across – Scotsman’s far away river for all in 21 letters : MURRAY

8-across – It’s sporting an animated conscience : CRICKET

9-across – Start of Strauss opera with no middle and no top part : SOPRANO

11-across – Cambridge’s latest birds find study of cancer largely — two thirds myth : ROBINSONCOLLEGE

12-across – I’m very busy so I wear the burka : UPTO

13-across – Little birds here should be feature of wedding — Euan Blair’s? : HATCHERIES

17-across – Fairy before returning sweet is ready to be kissed : PUCKEREDUP

18-across – Mark beginning, not ending : STAR

20-across – A lot of 5 down, or my Scotch penny is counterfeit : SYMPHONYCONCERT

23-across – Repair to meadow with the man who contrived to 21 its clue : DARNLEY

24-across – 21 inversely bein’ emollient : INSOOTH

25-across – See 12 : MYEYES

26-across – One desiring to be extended? : LONGER

2-down – Thermodynamic formula, one possibly a bit acid : ADIABATIC

3-down – Girl entertaining family in city, formerly : PEKING

4-down – Why not let everyone have as much beer as they want? : RATIONALE

5-down – Sound of cat? Yes, that’s correct : MUSIC

6-down – Beans, say, in scarlet are rejected : REPULSED

7-down – Humiliate a singer, say? : ABASE

8-down – Teacher wrote 5 down — report is put around : CIRCUMPOSED

10-down – Apply too much pressure to passages of 8 across — time to go back to church : OVERSTRETCH

14-down – Curmudgeon embracing offspring nearly 19 years older than 11 : CHURCHILL

15-down – Zenith possible for one mentally ready to achieve it : INTHEZONE

16-down – Permit astronomer to drop drug with fatal effect : LETHALLY

19-down – Public servants at one in 5 down : UNISON

21-down – Scottish queen — imprisoned queen indeed! : MARRY

22-down – Couldn’t Alfred make up his mind? : NOYES

1-across – Killer back in work, one tied up on board : TOPSAIL

5-across – Bank is reversing into bus garage : DEPOSIT

9-across – I spill the beans, choked by surprisingly artful prisoners : FIRST

10-across – Thin person originally filling carriage; he ate all the pies! : GREEDYPIG

11-across – See 9 : PERSONSINGULAR

13-across – After looping the loop, Red Arrows fly from here : OCHE

14-across – Diagram showing the average to take to the left, gaining height : BARGRAPH

17-across – Such a hotel might be in favour of accommodating bear scoffing last of breakfast : FOURSTAR

18-across – River takes poem to river : ODER

21-across – Clothes fasteners securing border bind poorly — whatever next! : THEMINDBOGGLES

23-across – Again letting out? Yes! : RELEASING

24-across – Cool, hot below : NEATH

25-across – Wonderful character getting thinner : ACETONE

26-across – Ending in defeat, dabbler’s move rubbish : TWADDLE

1-down – Some part of uninspired vegetarian’s diet : TOFU

2-down – Drink gets the pub down, which is novel : PORTERHOUSEBLUE

3-down – So positionally top-class crickets declare : ATTEST

4-down – Big name for big toe? : LEGEND

5-down – Hymn fades, one listener having turned up : DIESIRAE

6-down – Psychiatrist’s head gets back into anxious teaching : PEDAGOGY

7-down – How business works flexibly, joiner having called up daughter : SUPPLYANDDEMAND

8-down – Ferocious swimmer good during rows? Listen! : TIGERSHARK

12-down – Antipodean machine with multiple teats of ice water malfunctioning : COWFETARIA

15-down – A fool so upstanding given to repeated musical expression : OSTINATO

16-down – Get Paul’s explosive : LANDMINE

19-down – Sound type wanted : SOUGHT

20-down – Zulu offering conclusions along with a nation : UGANDA

22-down – Bottom off bicycle part, I’m running down the hill! : WHEE

9-across – Bikini, say, kept by nanny for cleric : AYATOLLAH

10-across – Tedium in endless night abroad : ENNUI

11-across – Tool for handling all or part of … : CATSPAW

12-across – … fliers: about time it changed : TITMICE

13-across – Tie knot indeed : MARRY

14-across – Inflame St Matthew with reduction in job which oddly is … : FIRSTMATE

16-across – … 22 down 20 that after moment’s stop in pub died : SECONDINCOMMAND

19-across – Pet arrives with prince producing mucus : CATARRHAL

21-across – Rude dismissal without point from land with 20 : FEOFF

22-across – Extended part of 1, an easy target : LONGHOP

23-across – Disease encompassing land returned by poet : BARRETT

24-across – Bond boy finds one in lough : ERNIE

25-across – Show business here, after raid botched : TRADEFAIR

1-down – I’m accused falsely about new movement with notes : DANCEMUSIC

2-down – Sailors in charge of acid : TARTARIC

3-down – Roman in Hampshire, tapster in play : POMPEY

4-down – Lento, foster-father of Greek vase : SLOW

5-down – Needing no answer from arch-toiler : RHETORICAL

6-down – Spinner nearly dry? I’m not sure : TEETOTUM

7-down – Sang in a choir, my part giving a lot of pain : ANGINA

8-down – See 4 : TIME

14-down – Overhead course for stairway? : FLIGHTPATH

15-down – Why say happily ever after? : ENDOFSTORY

17-down – Hareton’s novel fuel source : NORTHSEA

18-down – A swine holds up Pevsner’s piece, which is at a premium : ABOVEPAR

20-down – Tiller for another raft: enter man with steering : TENANT

21-down – See 20 : FARMER

22-down – See 23 : LIEU

23-down – Lover’s romance for everyone in Hampshire : BEAU

9-across – Plan to demonstrate mountain rescue, with many abseiling Pyrenean summits : RELIEFMAP

10-across – Sage bush given oxygen: at last, green leaves : PLATO

11-across – State briefly you’ll reply to everyone by degrees : ALABAMA

12-across – Degrees of the ocean, you might say? : CELSIUS

13-across – Depose members from Guangzhou State : OUST

14-across – About making a game of something : RECREATION

16-across – Get the full story from chap on American defeat : HEAROUT

17-across – Church is in a state about the result of Industrial Revolution : MACHINE

19-across – Midday service abolished by Conservative despots on management : SECONDPOST

22-across – Bring about change of state using billions to take a precious commodity : BOIL

24-across – Alleged drug usage by leading lady : HEROINE

25-across – Appeal to dissolute tart: end indolence : ATTRACT

26-across – Experience a change of state : TASTE

27-across – Old Jacobean tragedy of realities? : ISRAELITE

1-down – Go on oath, perhaps, bent on such as cricket’s nemesis : ORGANOPHOSPHATE

2-down – Boatman may be in a state? : ALLATSEA

3-down – Painter of French state : DEGAS

4-down – Menacing sounds all around : IMMANENT

5-down – Restates briefly about means of separation : SPACER

6-down – Perhaps iron man : APPLIANCE

7-down – State briefly: Boatman’s at bottom of trap for a beast : WAPITI

8-down – Epistle torn open in a state : POISONPENLETTER

15-down – Spooner’s upper-class type saluted, booted : HOBNAILED

17-down – A bit of a state over some land to mow down : MASSACRE

18-down – Under the same pressure as Biro : ISOBARIC

20-down – Church leader after an hour is in a state, briefly : CHRIST

21-down – State briefly using crisp reworking around central theme : PRECIS

23-down – Perfect state : UTTER

1-across – Ascertain boffins’ choice of poison — and I shall follow suit : SEEWHATTHEBOYS

8-across – See 1 : INTHE

9-across – See 1 : BACKROOM

11-across – Life for a Romany with a lot going for him : ZINGARO

12-across – Void unchanged — complete reversal unknown : NULLIFY

13-across – Code for get hiccups : ETHIC

15-across – Former merchant, preserver of formal religious book, say : DRYSALTER

17-across – Hesitation on my account disrupts the internal problem : TUMMYACHE

20-across – Cat: plant one for the royal family : GENET

21-across – Dismiss person with money : CASHIER

23-across – Overshadow orientals keeping film extracts : ECLIPSE

25-across – See 1 : WILLHAVE

26-across – Latin American movement prisoner to the state? : CONGA

27-across – Milk : THIRDTIMELUCKY

1-down – Cheats on credit — no use to James Bond? : SWIZZLESTICK

2-down – School said to be rusty? : EATEN

3-down – Yesterday, across the water, Marquis’s cockroach’s ranking : HIERARCHY

4-down – Bad lot, I discovered in the paper : TABLOID

5-down – O for a horse painter! : HOCKNEY

6-down – Stone on live railway line : BERYL

7-down – RNAS station that’s about to live dangerously : YEOVILTON

10-down – Author Philip in Clarendon to pray wildly for what spa provides : HYDROTHERAPY

14-down – Half a line I make in embroidery lacking time : HEMISTICH

16-down – Heavenly candy left : ANGELICAL

18-down – Bush product — dog took part in race against time : CURRANT

19-down – Glance at detective on side of joist, say : EYEBEAM

22-down – Who’s who on the French right that does nothing : IDLER

24-down – Fear his follower will be Latin American : PANIC