Daily Answers

1-across – Blame taken by ex-leader for current peril : RAPIDS

4-across – Paint porcelain : EGGSHELL

9-across – Flowers for Molly and Leopold : BLOOMS

10-across – Fighter in battle with palace spaniel : BLENHEIM

11-across – Donkeys, say – stubborn as feed is flaky : BEASTSOFBURDEN

13-across – Byzantine Empire band giving first performance : PREMIERING

14-across – Tuber brought back from Flodden Field : EDDO

16-across – Green manure : LIME

18-across – Fuel is taken from a car – then it packed up : ANTHRACITE

21-across – Mischief caused by king in financial dealings : MONKEYBUSINESS

23-across – Province holding back number one citizen : NATIONAL

24-across – Strip joint attended by saint : DIVEST

25-across – Bats need ears for the evening air : SERENADE

26-across – Bill, a leader of the Stones : AGATES

1-down – Girl Guide’s first absence from school : RUBY

2-down – Give me a call in the linguistics unit : PHONEME

3-down – Head’s cane not stopping servant : DOMESTIC

5-down – Measures taken after duke is trapped by game birds : GOLDFINCHES

6-down – Make fun of sentence : SENDUP

7-down – Put right crossword compiler who’s turned over : EMENDED

8-down – Fish and fruit given Spanish acclaim : LEMONSOLE

12-down – Directors given time and place for launch : SPRINGBOARD

13-down – Naval officer detaining almost all king’s horses : PALOMINOS

15-down – Ghostly appearance that is difficult to forget : HAUNTING

17-down – Screen lizard : MONITOR

19-down – Vet required when little creature has swallowed coin : INSPECT

20-down – Focus on love at home : ZEROIN

22-down – They deliver notes and letters – initially in Anthony Trollope work – before publication : ATMS

9-across – Extremes of bad taste, not to be gone into : OFFLIMITS

10-across – Primula – it’s at the wrong beastly end for soup-making : OXLIP

11-across – Man relocated from American plant : ERICA

12-across – Start to boast of part in 3 : SCARECROW

13-across – Fungus grower’s support to end : BEARDIE

14-across – Cannes’ opener: Times We Live In sought by 24 down in 3 : COURAGE

17-across – Reserved a scrubber with no expression of joy : ALOOF

19-across – Ancient Everest pass leads back climber : PEA

20-across – Media mogul, no saint, sought by 23 in 3 : HEART

21-across – Web community member not gross? One school of thought : NETIZEN

22-across – Fish swallowing hot molten lead in 3 : DOROTHY

24-across – Cheek and gums make-up? Yes and no : LIPSTICKS

26-across – Like a beanpole put round two fertiliser elements : LANKY

28-across – Hearsay broadcasting with Dee, say : ONDIT

29-across – Property deal puts energy in Black Sea resort : LEASEBACK

1-down – Cook, oriental, sought by 22 across in 3 : HOME

2-down – Land father in a modern art venue : AFRICA

3-down – Classic feature of western comic’s non-Pommy equivalent, it’s said : WIZARDOFOZ

4-down – Time Magazine edition’s absorbing stuff : TISSUE

5-down – Potential beef spread abroad? : ESTANCIA

6-down – Head of Bury United sought by 22 across’s 25? : BONE

7-down – Blimey! Again, sadly, without Britten opera : GLORIANA

8-down – Throw upstart of seventeen on seat : SPEW

13-down – Bishop Bucket sought by 12 in 3 : BRAIN

15-down – Not published abroad, as New York Tribune is : UNHERALDED

16-down – Debut – make yours on solving this : ENTRY

18-down – Start to dip in to scoop out squids? : OCTOPODS

19-down – Pinhole camera’s top removed for a game : PINOCHLE

22-down – Hell might be appalling : DISMAY

23-down – Outdated money piece seen in 3 : TINMAN

24-down – Millions, though not Lean, up for part in 3 : LION

25-down – 3’s pet character in this is entirely Latinised : TOTO

27-down – Hairy beasts’ gasses : YAKS

1-across – Brick left in ship at island : SPORTSMAN

6-across – German woman finds Germany a deceiver : FRAUD

9-across – 24, said 4, is formed by threefold God, final unity : ATALE

10-across – Qualifier for conversion by pet converter of laity on chapter : CATALYTIC

11-across – Reach 99 after a game of Sorry? : APOLOGETIC

12-across – Colourful film … : IRIS

14-across – … found in note to be quite good : FAIRISH

15-across – Clearing solvers of amorous gesture : GLADEYE

17-across – See 9 : OFSOUND

19-across – See 9 : ANDFURY

20-across – See 9 : TOLD

22-across – See 9 : SIGNIFYING

25-across – See 9 : BYANIDIOT

26-across – Authorisation for a relation … of the giraffe : OKAPI

27-across – Get rid of Times English : ERASE

28-across – Domestic protection for holy woman in 2 : DUSTSHEET

1-down – Flow and go away, say? : SCAPA

2-down – Chapels provide alternative to a party : ORATORIES

3-down – Monk becomes student on entering the notes : THELONIOUS

4-down – Play with commander in American study : MACBETH

5-down – See 9 : NOTHING

6-down – See 9 : FULL

7-down – Boss doesn’t open flower… : ASTER

8-down – …which follows many during homework in Athenian court : DICASTERY

13-down – Short-lived fly, disturbed, can sleep outside : CANDYFLOSS

14-down – Companies can be left on grass in 9 : FLOATABLE

16-down – Explain how to create bliss entertaining posh police : ELUCIDATE

18-down – Roman emperors were finally, but it could be reversed : DEIFIED

19-down – Beneficial payment of old money getting setback : ANNATES

21-down – A fixer elevated into a climber : LIANA

23-down – Teacher raised among the great may go through the mill : GRIST

24-down – Long sentence in novel, I fear : LIFE

1-across – Organised tour with lady, apparently : OUTWARDLY

6-across – Brook babbling in North Wales : RHYL

10-across – 5 settled with David, an American wordsmith : MAMET

11-across – A picnic for a fall guy? : APUSHOVER

12-across – What would Pavarotti do in Hyde Park, shout? : SINGOUT

13-across – Master Icarus hybridising the grape hyacinth : MUSCARI

14-across – Offensive remark from m-most anti-CRE c-characters : RACISTCOMMENT

17-across – Fear of death without a name, that old black magic, breaking into quiet laugh : THANATOPHOBIA

21-across – No good a northern family entering this Chinese city : NANKING

22-across – Musical interval happening in silence! : SEVENTH

24-across – One a Dyke trapped, investigated and identified : DIAGNOSED

25-across – Bride of Cornwall, say, managed to get out : REGAN

26-across – Behind, following day’s first cuckoo : DAFT

27-across – Slaving treaties formed when Spanish agreement sent nothing abroad : ASSIENTOS

1-down – See 16 : ONMISERY

2-down – See 16 : TOMAN

3-down – Might Network Rail respond to this battle cry? : ACTIONSTATIONS

4-down – Doctor the wine with carbon; it’s terrible! : DRASTIC

5-down – Familial blighters, according to 8 in 9 : YOURMUM

7-down – Essay’s thrust! : HAVEASTAB

8-down – Pop poet : LARKIN

9-down – Could be his best ever, the work of 8 : THISBETHEVERSE

15-down – Judgement of Solomon with baby calf: You say thin slices? : CUTINHALF

16-down – 8’s reflection in 9, perhaps: In a damn’ thorny mess, Ma. No? : MANHANDS

18-down – One clowning on a golf course : AUGUSTA

19-down – Bradman’s legs? : ONSIDES

20-down – See 5 : ANDDAD

23-down – Watchman! What of the black bat? : NIGHT

1-across – Volumes of fish with dessert : CODICES

5-across – Like the dove … : PACIFIC

9-across – … adrift in the ark? : ATSEA

10-across – Love came close without : OVEREGGED

11-across – The right locations for a deformed and scurrilous Grecian : THERSITES

12-across – Friend embracing alien with term of endearment : PETAL

13-across – One going in for a statement of Africanism? : RASTA

15-across – Having a minimal workforce, use head no end : ONEHANDED

18-across – British 1 down’s funny lot – cask masked casket : SALTCAKED

19-across – Station of royal anger? : KINGS

21-across – See 19 : CROSS

23-across – The second time a winter sportsman has become a Turkish general : SERASKIER

25-across – Gaudy night flier: it returns bacterium back to hospital : TIGERMOTH

26-across – Came into being with irrelevant name? : AROSE

27-across – Plant of bestial tendency : ASTILBE

28-across – Prod Scotsman with cards : POKEMON

1-down – Mat is company for Daisy : COASTER

2-down – What happens to 5 down characters in face of radiation : DISPERSAL

3-down – Love in a little boy means everything’s 9 : CHAOS

4-down – Peace with au pair gaining religious knowledge and doing so quickly? : SHORTWORK

5-down – A crowd in the cupboard : PRESS

6-down – Hawker producing the sound of birdsong with fish : CHEAPJACK

7-down – Get a picture hat without a struggle : FIGHT

8-down – About a hundred were first cooked by Molly : CODDLED

14-down – Inherited from Lancaster? : ANCESTRAL

16-down – Wine producers with joint to be exercised in church : ELDERSHIP

17-down – Toothlike depression the setter is making : DENTIFORM

18-down – Boozer keeps company with painter in the Indian Ocean : SOCOTRA

20-down – 5 down enters child operator : SURGEON

22-down – How disgusting to put in books the suggestion of a moral law! : OUGHT

23-down – See 18 across : SMOKE

24-down – See 18 across : STACK