Daily Answers

1-across – Coming before the bar opens is optimistic : UPBEAT

5-across – Parrot that is settled in the country : PRETORIA

9-across – The Black Prince having more intelligence : BRAINIER

10-across – Energy keeps male abstainer from segregated area : GHETTO

11-across – Art like rocket science in bright star : ARCHITECTURE

13-across – French king to have a place in the country : CAPE

14-across – Egg-laying beetle? : LADYBIRD

17-across – Where the defendant is after a drink … : ATTHEBAR

18-across – … which is simple for an ox : NEAT

20-across – Runabout hard on queen’s sticky plant in the country : JOHANNESBURG

23-across – How duck went west, taken off : ADDLED

24-across – Move through holes and tell : UNBUTTON

25-across – Example of fashionable attitude : INSTANCE

26-across – A row in direction giving name to writer of the country : NADINE

2-down – Left the blaze spreading around one in the country : PORT

3-down – See 2 : ELIZABETH

4-down – Tease companion for involuntary movement : TWITCH

5-down – Favourable to papers’ turnabout which is exerted by one gas : PARTIALPRESSURE

6-down – Good man interrupting oaths from the 9? : EGGHEADS

7-down – Showing? About time! : OVERT

8-down – Main lines are showing Queen 3 as Sikh : INTERURBAN

12-down – Cockney scene in the country : EASTLONDON

15-down – Get struck on the shoulder, heard not seen? : BENIGHTED

16-down – A singer fellow near Oxford : ABINGDON

19-down – Cross out half of 8 in the country : DURBAN

21-down – Complete set of books, a sign to the audience : ALLOT

22-down – See 13 : TOWN

9-across – One feature in bachelor which is delicate : BONECHINA

10-across – Danger for 49 : PERIL

11-across – Blessed one on drug, the hard stuff : STONE

12-across – 11 times with the bat, past : MIDDLESEX

13-across – 11 reserves used to attack : ARSENAL

14-across – 11 hit, catching king : WREXHAM

17-across – Turn pair of keys to open drink : ADDLE

19-across – Spring vegetable making comeback : MAY

20-across – Material hardly stood out! : SATIN

21-across – 11, at any moment, 160 of them : EVERTON

22-across – 11s having singular ailment? : SHINGLE

24-across – Fruit considered tasteless? : RASPBERRY

26-across – Boy making sound of crane : DEREK

28-across – French product meeting resistance, rose : BRIER

29-across – Material’s check set in 11, perhaps : VELVETEEN

1-down – Bird, I repeat! : IBIS

2-down – More than one bulb emitting light is on when switched : ONIONS

3-down – Trial where one gets shot : SCREENTEST

4-down – Melancholic face capturing painful experience : DISMAL

5-down – Criticise unfashionable US dessert : PANDOWDY

6-down – 11 circle supported by rootless tree : OPAL

7-down – One with authority like mum, scallywag admits : BRASSHAT

8-down – Plant Latin in modern communication : FLAX

13-down – 11 needing a number of supporters : AGATE

15-down – Malay archipelago etc facing 11 from the West : EASTINDIES

16-down – Appear affected, as meat : MINCE

18-down – Hearing honeybunch’s family, hide! : DEERSKIN

19-down – Plant not entirely hot during migration : MANGROVE

22-down – Sea monster fighting partner with riot gas, rearing : SCYLLA

23-down – 11 for which newspaper’s written up score : GARNET

24-down – 11 in sport getting through … : RUBY

25-down – … thrashed 11 : BURY

27-down – 11 known much further north : KENT

9-across – Pleasant air has little – very little – sent back with grains in it : SWEETNESSANDLIGHT

12-across – White part of joint originates inferior performer : HAMFAT

13-across – Bad luck being held by doctrinaire? : HARDLINES

14-across – Bribe on board : DASH

15-across – Bird’s report of 32 writer with Somerville : ALBATROSS

16-across – Rain indoors? : CATSANDDOGS

18-across – Writer with state reportedly more veiny : PENCIL

20-across – Araucaria’s … not so young as he’d like you to think? : IMAGE

21-across – Alien beast backed to make sheets : LAMINATE

23-across – Ratings show displeasure at pack : LOWERDECK

25-across – Assent for a second, in cargo boat several months : AYEARORSO

26-across – Fawn who had ministry arranged – just DIY job? : WITHMYOWN

28-across – See 26 : FAIRHANDS

30-across – Strongly suggestive of expenditure swallowing income : REDOLENT

31-across – Way in which partner is cut to the quick : SWIFT

32-across – Hall bachelor enters with his eyes open : ALBERT

34-across – Windows file hard to decipher after lethal effect of large crowd? : ALLTHEWORLD

36-across – Getting on when bird is off? : NOCHICKEN

39-across – Piece of garden for English writer : BEDE

40-across – Symbol erected to speed by the French : TOTEMPOLE

41-across – Game set and band : RUBBER

42-across – 36 grown out of diet extravaganza and cross about it : WRONGSIDEOFTHIRTY

1-down – Craft now used for piece that’s obsolete in the first place : TWOFRANC

2-down – Writer’s right : DEXTER

3-down – See 34 : ANDHISWIFE

4-down – Take over the Guardian, former city page : USURP

5-down – A whole new one often, but is it cricket? : BALLGAME

6-down – Labour lord, Tory butterfly : ADONISBLUE

7-down – Premier writer with Scottish county name : WILSON

8-down – One rode a horse and the other _____ : RHODODENDRON

10-down – Familiar precipitation descended with painful sound to spring on police : HAILFELLOWWELLMET

11-down – It’s good to see work of art without regret: I must leave evening party by agreement : ASIGHTFORSOREEYES

17-down – Writer making aristocracy fashionable? : RANKIN

19-down – Western town has telescoped cricketer and French girlfriend : LARAMIE

22-down – Change one with a drug : MORPHIA

24-down – Unlacerated? These days the books are for idiots : WITHOUTTEARS

25-down – Business, one to be exposed with maximum row? : AFFAIR

27-down – Remove hesitation from cockroach specialist: I can make him see straight : ORTHOPTIST

29-down – We don’t look out in time to find model in Roy’s team : INTROVERTS

31-down – Fairy with monster’s head comes into marquisate – 26 28? : SELFMADE

33-down – Sheridan’s scandalous knight found in the Tiber? : BACKBITE

35-down – Navigator’s assistant with head cut off surviving : EXTANT

37-down – Not exactly diehard socialist writer for reporter : HARDIE

38-down – Writer, repeatedly told to leave, left : GOGOL

1-across – School mark approving funny business : SCHTICK

5-across – Bismarck ruled this land of blue and Prince this land once red : PRUSSIA

9-across – Momentous thing, heart rate’s disturbed : EARTHSHATTERING

10-across – Aviation route switched in flight : STAIR

11-across – Indifferent to conversion of Caledonia : LAODICEAN

12-across – Trawlerman with a PC full of contacts? : NETWORKER

14-across – Sri Lankan maiden trapped by shadow : TAMIL

15-across – Lonely Lakeland water-bearer : CLOUD

16-across – High point of some 9 recipe with ten ingredients : EPICENTRE

18-across – Liquidates a joint society : AMORTISES

21-across – Total bill for one from the arboretum : SUMAC

22-across – Endue child of all creation with The Catcher in the Rye : HOLDENCAULFIELD

23-across – Immaturity of redhead? : RAWNESS

24-across – What Bacchus waved in years hence? Switch! : THYRSUS

1-down – As Phaedra’s Hippolytus crushes underfoot : STEPSON

2-down – Great exemplar with all to do: watch for failing : HARDACTTOFOLLOW

3-down – One taking Hood’s place as playwright : ISHERWOOD

4-down – Knight, a prince of the Jewish community : KAHAL

5-down – Smells coming from this river, right? Our tip erupted : POTPOURRI

6-down – One true offspring: some mothers do ‘ave ’em! : UTERI

7-down – Long John Silver’s expression in his aspen grove? : SHIVERMYTIMBERS

8-down – Like the pain from Algerian gin almost : ANGINAL

13-down – In which calves take cover : KNEESOCKS

14-down – Bloodsucker in knitted twin-set? Run! : TSETSEFLY

15-down – Pain in the heart nearly finished tutor : COACHER

17-down – What an enigmatist does, getting up to perform during scene change : ENCODES

19-down – Substance of article on the setter : THEME

20-down – Burst of speed put on by jet : SPURT

8-across – Compound of nitrogen with annoying effect? : RINGTONE

9-across – Island finding ways to communicate : RHODES

10-across – See 19 : CHAD

11-across – Right about answer on poetry getting across : TRANSVERSE

12-across – See 24 down : DINNER

14-across – Blimey, it’s virtuous : GOODNESS

15-across – Author who could balance a pint on her head while playing billiards, they say? : BEATRIX

17-across – Matches turn on flat set : STIFFEN

20-across – Sex symbol a little short getting through capital : MONROVIA

22-across – Independent leader into social equality : PARITY

23-across – Where priests found crime in book, perhaps : PARSONAGES

24-across – The Elephant Man experienced suffering : HURT

25-across – I start to nap in holiday home, though light : IGNITE

26-across – Turned out well about infertility treatment female dismissed, one giving birth : NATIVITY

1-down – Carping woman? : FISHWIFE

2-down – Archaic interjection, for example, since Jesus Christ! : EGAD

3-down – See 15 : POTTER

4-down – Paul left the Guardian almost totally in confusion : MELANGE

5-down – Radical protects political street fighter : PRESCOTT

6-down – See 24 : SOMEONEFOR

7-down – Yankees to cage as animals : BEASTS

13-down – Legal position for sailor, given year unable to sail around? : NOTARYSHIP

16-down – Opening point kept in mind, though not initially made up : INVENTED

18-down – The whole of eternity? : ENTIRITY

19-down – Country in favour of capital punishment – why Bush beat Gore? : HANGING

21-down – Why I can never get a signal on my mobile phone network? : ORANGE

22-down – Extremes of price fixed with a coin of old : PESETA

24-down – So might a cannibal entertain? : HAVE