Daily Answers

1-across – Grudging approval for Rowse? : COULDBEWORSE

8-across – Conservationist advice of no avail : USELESS

9-across – City topped one caught for being a robber : HEISTER

11-across – Answer from Roger that’s keeping an appointment : RIPOSTE

12-across – Church, one that’s against drink : CHIANTI

13-across – Wild time in Florida : FERAL

14-across – 1 across with AC/DC is venerated above criticism : SACREDCOW

16-across – Officer mislaid drink – baby’s first : COLOSTRUM

19-across – Secretive about how old one is, unknown to the last : CAGEY

21-across – Converse of automobile city beginning service? : INTROIT

23-across – Head ill-treated by her having it shaved : DELILAH

24-across – Union on Kentish lines for care of young : NURSERY

25-across – Painter has to change direction over monetary arrangement : VERMEER

26-across – What’s dealt at bridge before shuffling off? : ALLOTTEDSPAN

1-down – Chick sounds rather vulgar : CHEEPER

2-down – Tool that can be turned to let us in : UTENSIL

3-down – One may take notes from former royal consort’s speech : DISPENSER

4-down – Moral principle : ETHIC

5-down – It’s nothing, if in US official’s mouth : ORIFICE

6-down – It’s wicked, some say, to stop for drinks at a nice pub : SATANIC

7-down – To install a judge over legal proceedings is rot : PUTREFACTION

10-down – Carroll’s life-threatening investment : RAILWAYSHARE

15-down – Theatrical king making a step towards Middle East agreement : CAMPDAVID

17-down – A taller sort of sideways : LATERAL

18-down – Donkey in exhibition almost makes a break down under : SMOKEHO

19-down – State upset drink, which was spiked : CALTROP

20-down – Vessel of old fashion all gone : GALLEON

22-down – Go on the street for an encounter : TRYST

1-across – From time to time he had vulgarly pursued the clue : THREAD

5-across – Uncommon facial adornment is bound to hurt : MUSTACHE

9-across – Alternative ways to deal with suspect lease : FREEHOLD

10-across – One deprived of chryselephantine fragments? : ORPHAN

11-across – Welsh consonantal sound : DOUBLELOCKED

13-across – See 22 : CHAT

14-across – Finished. Finished? Finished : OVERPAST

17-across – Horoscope for outstanding performers : STARCAST

18-across – This little piggy made a noise and got the chop : RUNT

20-across – Promotion of rain to cast gloom over pre-Wimbledon deliberations? : CLOUDSEEDING

23-across – Insidious effects of Kenya’s corruption : SNEAKY

24-across – Unfashionable Tory isn’t qualified : OUTRIGHT

25-across – Serpent with broken reeds is unjustly criticised : ASPERSED

26-across – They are going to the river with the ‘ounds : EXEUNT

2-down – Keep on talking about instrument : HARP

3-down – Remote and obscure textual critic : EMENDATOR

4-down – Damned villain with parachute : DROGUE

5-down – Moderate form of hold, if moderated : MIDDLEOFTHEROAD

6-down – Has the queen a duty to be hard or cold? : SHOULDER

7-down – How pretty can jelly be? : ASPIC

8-down – Is snow : HEAVENSENT

12-down – Like snow on the railways or in the 5 down : WHITELINES

15-down – Before, display of amusement during physical education got one the bird : PEREGRINE

16-down – Sect with easy option in 5 down : CATSEYES

19-down – Classical man, most of the day, has quality : VIRTUE

21-down – Top composer on point of order : UKASE

22-down – What about an island for a bird? : WHIN

1-across – Best, say, refrain of 8’s 23 26 : GEORGE

4-across – Shun amphetamines and block tobacco : ESCHEW

9-across – Foot is how Brummie introduced himself, initially? : LAMB

10-across – They brighten the gloom of age in northern lands : NEONLIGHTS

11-across – See 1 : DONTDO

12-across – Country singer, Whip, product of market gardening? : CASHCROP

13-across – Tabloid South American boat handler’s reported dispute : ARGYBARGY

15-across – Fancy reversed felt-tip, like a brush? : DAFT

16-across – Peaches, lasciviously unfastening stocking tops, gets bonus : PLUS

17-across – Removing plaque etc from wrong end – it’s disrupted test : DENTISTRY

21-across – Hoot away – but don’t be serious about it : LAUGHOFF

22-across – Old advice about concealed earthwork openings: go back! : RECEDE

24-across – Motorway lane management study by worthless type backing down : CONTRAFLOW

25-across – See 1 : THAT

26-across – How brawls might sound, put into words : PHRASE

27-across – Bridges often are in real need of water, lacking power : ARCHED

1-down – The allure of pumpkin, say, endlessly filled with endless meat : GLAMOUR

2-down – A satellite completes more than one viewer at one time : ORBIT

3-down – London Eye component – in climbing on, do laugh! : GONDOLA

5-down – Be the cause of a spat on getting place in band : SPLASH

6-down – Aristocratic group of students on drugs? : HIGHCLASS

7-down – Lacking, but not on the inside : WITHOUT

8-down – Entertainer, writer/novelist Henry pointlessly dropped dead : JOYCEGRENFELL

14-down – After play’s end, tongues wagging over rep’s lead : YOUNGSTER

16-down – Sort of fog starter? : PEASOUP

18-down – Line at the centre of the king’s pitcher : THROWER

19-down – Footballer doesn’t want to be confronted with this bloody joker : REDCARD

20-down – Slough artist covered in green stuff : MORASS

23-down – Don’t miss the musical round : CATCH

1-across – Party trick: minister keeping tax as priority : CONSERVATIVE

8-across – Insect maybe flying on and off, reported flying in Russia : ANTONOV

9-across – Mars’ hill, place of pilgrimage once : BENARES

11-across – How Othello loved to be in debt, having interrupted payment : TOOWELL

12-across – Shakespearean gentleman to indicate return of French king : SIGNIOR

13-across – New party? … : GREEN

14-across – … likewise, in lieu, the person next door to Spooner : NEWLABOUR

16-across – See 25 : DEMOCRATS

19-across – Identity card opens admittance into games for rum rum party … : PLAID

21-across – … its openings gain admittance before there’s fever inside : ENTERIC

23-across – Nobleman shortly entertaining love poet : ARIOSTO

24-across – Am I dust? Hardly, though I might include a dirt track : STADIUM

25-across – Ballots carried me out from party : LIBERAL

26-across – Leaders have embraced mercy – perhaps in the battlebus : HEADQUARTERS

1-down – Pet hate starts with poetry – hence the electrons : CATHODE

2-down – Granny’s very partial to this cloth : NANKEEN

3-down – Interval entailed partaking of a meal of lentils : ERVALENTA

4-down – Struggles to contain black feelings : VIBES

5-down – Terracotta horse in house that went with the wind : TANAGRA

6-down – Unbalanced state of 13 before I leave : VERTIGO

7-down – Gaea’s change of heart over the 13 engine? : EARTHGODDESS

10-down – Star performer wanting to fly? Ride horse : SIRFREDHOYLE

15-down – Reveller, the fool, interrupting mourner : WASSAILER

17-down – Macbeth, questioning his title, is inflammable : METHANE

18-down – Passed being a passenger? : CARRIED

19-down – Prince likely to be open to persuasion : PLIABLE

20-down – Times following removal of leader from Egyptian states : ASSERTS

22-down – See 19 across : CYMRU

1-across – Writing back to university, thank God ‘e’s got a mark : SMUDGE

5-across – Winner bagged first place in this : SACKRACE

9-across – Americans doing the business here in Bangor, say? : DOWNTOWN

10-across – Never admitting training in household textiles : NAPERY

11-across – Strangely, ‘e found Dallas immediately : ALLOFASUDDEN

13-across – It becomes us all and, ungrammatically, on the contrary! : DUST

14-across – Work with large numbers of tree dwellers : OPOSSUMS

17-across – Barber’s harmony loud, so far as we are concerned : FOURPART

18-across – No further charge on the Blaydon Races? : NETT

20-across – Declines more treatment with such instruments : MICRONEEDLES

23-across – One’s turning left through her! : SILVIA

24-across – Supports weapons without support : ARMRESTS

25-across – In French, spell Charm : ENTRANCE

26-across – Innate, primitive disposition! : NATURE

2-down – Reveal the rear satellite : MOON

3-down – St Leger here with a fellow fly-fisher : DONCASTER

4-down – Cabinet oil expert outing the French 22 : ETOILE

5-down – Unite in mess of mess; hang together roughly or, in unison, belt out 2 21, 9, 11, 19 21, 22 13, 23, say, or 26 boy : SINGFROMTHESAME

6-down – Monastic London characters in the Lake District : CONISTON

7-down – Swift attack capturing prince : RAPID

8-down – Reprimand night flyer for attacking Brussels? : CARPETMOTH

12-down – The Bundesbank’s dream of continental coverage? : EUROVISION

15-down – See 5 : SONGSHEET

16-down – Man without home thanks one for support : MAINTAIN

19-down – See 6 : OLDMAN

21-down – Banker with a bank in Paris, right? : RIVER

22-down – 4’s raising the population of Hamelin : STAR