Daily Answers

1-across – Song following less than mature north bank resident : RIPARIAN

5-across – Return of a Catholic beast to a city in Poland : CRACOW

9-across – Return of a priest to another, telling it as it was : VERACITY

10-across – Commercial decay keeps one deft : ADROIT

11-across – Cook meal served with Italian water : LAKECOMO

12-across – Author of 24 25 initially in a layer of shingle : PEBBLY

14-across – Rude fellow eating cheese – in Old English, an old pipe : OBOEDAMORE

18-across – Oral with old boy network produces very blue fluid : ROYALBLOOD

22-across – Tree with deposit on land : ASHORE

23-across – Hild wantonly embracing boy with more money than industry : IDLERICH

24-across – Greeting without unction to surgeon : HOWDOI

25-across – See 24 : LOVETHEE

26-across – Unexciting study of poet : DRYDEN

27-across – Space explorers in step backwards, rising in relation to electrical unit under 8 : PEASANTS

1-down – See 27 : REVOLT

2-down – Show disgust about the Queen’s hairpiece : PERUKE

3-down – Run out by nut in extravagant style : ROCOCO

4-down – Fall, O Simon Russell! said 21 : AUTOMOBILE

6-down – Ancient road revealed in weary dig : RIDGEWAY

7-down – Fiddle some figures like the modern Mrs Beeton? : COOKBOOK

8-down – Electrical unit on trust up against Richard II : WATTYLER

13-down – Support for Sir Alec from another place : SECONDHOME

15-down – Started on fish in bottom of river : BROACHED

16-down – En route, incidentally : BYTHEWAY

17-down – Note left for bird with halo : GLORIOLE

19-down – Depression? You need a holiday : RECESS

20-down – See 21 : WITHIN

21-down – Saint of the weather changes direction following Western rat – it’s not that simple : WHEELS

1-across – Fruit, overly dull inside : TOMATO

4-across – Fabulist losing way and breaking bone : FIBULA

9-across – Wunderkind’s hunting pack, crafted in Antipodes, gets market outside them : WOLFGANGAMADEUS

10-across – See 9 : MOZART

11-across – Beast finds far from buxom redhead, God willing, on boat : AARDVARK

12-across – Politician’s expletive about comeback : DEMOCRAT

14-across – Classically, Diana features in classical mode : LYDIAN

15-across – Refer to accountant turning acid : ACETIC

18-across – Card trick involving papers, say : COMEDIAN

21-across – Repudiate study on weight : DENOUNCE

22-across – Reply by putting Burn’s darling in control : REJOIN

24-across – One seeking alternative way to water green valley endlessly : NEWAGETRAVELLER

25-across – Island welcome in French 18 across : TAHITI

26-across – Having played for county, went one better : CAPPED

1-down – Couple raising swine in volume : TWOSOME

2-down – Sportsmen in the end returning from underworld : MAFIA

3-down – Blunt, say, or characteristic in front : TRAITOR

5-down – It’s wrong to get trimmer middle by using mouth : IMMORAL

6-down – See into dissolved whole : UNDIVIDED

7-down – Tanks, as in song : AQUARIA

8-down – Eliot and Milne, flanking Wells, recoil in horror : AGHAST

13-down – Medic’s expletive about bard”s comeback : OSTEOPATH

16-down – Bond embraces leading lady, being good-natured : CLEMENT

17-down – Relative position : CONTEXT

18-down – Shout about women producing fruit : CHERRY

19-down – Increasingly bird-like, both curtailed in Central Europe : MORAVIA

20-down – One is in need of flavouring : ANISEED

23-down – Drink for a month, almost establishing record : JULEP

1-across – 15 of 9 taking a mad gamble, caught withholding : ABELMAGWITCH

8-across – Lay spoken of solvers no longer with us : OVULATE

9-across – Writer’s devil … : DICKENS

11-across – … not like another writer : TOLKIEN

12-across – Arkwright’s lad succeeding one archbishop, then another : LANGHAM

13-across – US city reporter switching material to get the sack : GUNNY

14-across – Art of French Revolution period? : DECOUPAGE

16-across – Fits city lights one after another : ECLAMPSIA

19-across – Here on earth or under it? : BELOW

21-across – I’m right! Smee, alternatively, is Duck : IMMERSE

23-across – Nothing much left after chopper chopped salamander : AXOLOTL

24-across – Ape Athens gave initially to Ceres, I gathered : GRECISE

25-across – This offensive little unit, essentially nitro, explodes: it blows their heads off! : TOLUENE

26-across – 9 15: good chap! Fair of Delius to enter Yes! No Bananas : STONEYBRIGGS

1-down – Quail migrating on the north wind : AQUILON

2-down – Symbolic catechists abandon lying for greed : EDACITY

3-down – Homer going West on 15 March? : MAEONIDES

4-down – He proved his logic in the Okavango Delta : GODEL

5-down – One sergeant with two names: you say he”s John Doe : INCONNU

6-down – Around Grozny there’s no size for type of skullcap : CHECHIA

7-down – Nothing in getting a mug shot of this 15 of 9 : MONTAGUETIGG

10-down – 15 of 9 used 15 23 for 15 22 : SAMUELWELLER

15-down – Eccentric type : CHARACTER

17-down – Constant brightness measured here : LAMBERT

18-down – Invasive 15 of Welles out of Wells : MARTIAN

19-down – Wellington’s part to play in probibition busting : BOOTLEG

20-down – They sack the string players, you say? : LOOTERS

22-down – Old comedian bearing lines from Bunthorne with polish : EMERY

8-across – Affix an upper-class arrangement with art that conceals art? : FAUXNAIF

9-across – Make up for about a hundred without delay : ATONCE

10-across – Cut to a single point in blood : IGNORE

11-across – Silver fibre for mats, they say – you can’t write with it : AGRAPHIA

12-across – Reminder not applicable to Catholics? : PROD

13-across – Old sins in Paris are very old hat : TRESPASSES

15-across – Was 8 or 8, having hands laid on affectionately : STROKED

16-across – 1’s 22, one passed in the daytime, wrote 14 : ASBYATT

18-across – Crinkly fabric covers American copper left in the dusk : CREPUSCULE

19-across – Funny girl’s involved with us yet – could be Cinderella’s : UGLY

20-across – A crooner to be a fellow 2? : ABINGDON

22-across – See 19 : SISTER

23-across – A matter of the heart without the head, which is in recess : ALCOVE

24-across – Satirist finds girl in burrow : SMOLLETT

1-down – Drink up includes H-dropping Welsh boy and mob, our newish … : MARGARETDRABBLE

2-down – … university fellow in Eng. Lit. : OXFORDCOMPANION

3-down – Poor old story about fast ship : TALENTLESS

4-down – Some common drug turned up by journalist is caused to disappear : EFFACED

5-down – Soft music for 2 : PAIR

6-down – Be calm – don’t just play : COMPOSEYOURSELF

7-down – Verdict: semitonic change before finale : ACCIDENTALDEATH

14-down – Lots of lawmen find heaven in a chattel : POSSESSION

17-down – Rub up perversely in silence : BURNISH

21-down – Where people sit : DIET

1-across – A cold, say, is not straightforward : OBLIQUE

5-across – Quiet walk is an awkward one : SHAMBLE

9-across – Ancient kingdom plundered daily : LYDIA

10-across – Duty and honour serve in German church : OBEDIENCE

11-across – Announce the right goose steps taken by Goebbels? : PROPAGANDA

12-across – Piece of smut on the radio? : PAWN

14-across – One helps you get away from party, taking cover under canvas? : TRAVELAGENT

18-across – With some bitterness, all forwarded? : RESENTFULLY

21-across – Stunned by a giant : AGOG

22-across – Poet’s written about The Ring, keeping Rex And Rex together? : TOILETROLL

25-across – Fluctuating megastore, one that rises and falls : GASOMETER

26-across – Let me think about this – right or wrong? : ERROR

27-across – Tip not yet paid is granted : ENDOWED

28-across – Don’t slouch, Edith! : SITWELL

1-down – Plants kiss where it may be planted, on love : OXLIPS

2-down – Welsh heart would break 10 miles from Wales : LUDLOW

3-down – Managed to break antique forgery, a pet hate? : QUARANTINE

4-down – Kind of disease brings up a fleshy appendage : EBOLA

5-down – Graf has to abide a bloomer : SPEEDWELL

6-down – Boy from Pakistan, perhaps? You must be joking! : ASIF

7-down – Terrorist bomb’s planted in the High Street? : BINLADEN

8-down – Ring… until you get to speak to a human being, it often seems? : ETERNITY

13-down – Certainly disheartened by deal, perhaps, in bearing financial security : EASYSTREET

15-down – A very powerful couple of boys caused offence : AFFRONTED

16-down – Figure Interlagos could be less large : TRIANGLE

17-down – Adopted pose deceptively employed : ESPOUSED

19-down – Husky’s GAG? : HOARSE

20-down – Harris backing Pacino for such a tribute : FLORAL

23-down – Primate right in the middle of Superman’s lane : LORIS

24-down – Duck upsets me when caught : SMEW