Daily Answers

1-across – Sleeps with dons? : NODSOFF

5-across – Weaver’s bed : BOTTOM

10-across – Love equal pay, not a distribution without clarity : OPAQUELY

11-across – Providing returns since firm’s failure : FIASCO

13-across – Lilac arrangement extremely pretty and extremely big, not quite having a shapely 5 : CALLIPYGIAN

16-across – Minimal cover for 5, a number with a speech impediment : THONG

18-across – I’m sorry I haven’t a clue — most comical comeback with a hooter sound : LORDKNOWS

19-across – Epic drama about a lifesaver : PARAMEDIC

20-across – Gives party away : NATES

21-across – As soon as drink’s available for writer, I got mine drunk outside : OPENINGTIME

25-across – Squeal out for matches : EQUALS

26-across – Better outside, I realise : BAHOOKIE

27-across – A drip’s moving, but not like this : RAPIDS

28-across – Succumbed so readily, in part as a result of pressure : BEDSORE

2-down – Long rally, off course, endlessly crawling : ONALLFOURS

3-down – Scar an Arab : SAUDI

4-down – Take off around mid-July, run regularly, agreed and ready to fly : FULLYFLEDGED

6-down – Paper expert knows his flesh and blood : ONIONSKIN

7-down – You French, keep quiet! : TUSH

8-down – Put 5 on show, instant love ending on low note : MOON

9-down – Kind caress first to use a keyboard : TOUCHTYPE

12-down – Miami let loose captured reptile into local environment : MICROCLIMATE

14-down – We’re not enjoying this first sign of love in heart of sycophant : BOOTLICKER

15-down – Help decorate cake on the outside, initially leaving edges sharply symmetric : ISOSCELES

17-down – Declared bet and played : GAMBOLLED

22-down – Polish side-switching is repellent : GROSS

23-down – Fancy rare … : REAR

24-down – … steak? : RUMP

8-across – It may help you go and have fun, nursing a back strain : LAXATIVE

9-across – Folk dancing in the capital of China : ETHNIC

10-across – 24 across today embodies puzzle’s point : SEAT

11-across – Toppling from toilet back to front, mid-tinkle : DETHRONING

12-across – Go in another way, inserting a penny : ELAPSE

14-across – Laboratory chemicals are broken down by WC : REAGENTS

15-across – Playwright wanting smallest room pink? : JOHNGAY

17-across – Left workplace XI one short for return game : NETBALL

20-across – Comedian who played Broadway — or Flushing Meadows? : WCFIELDS

22-across – Forming attachment, as one kiss pierces lover’s heart : FIXIVE

23-across – Disposal of loot won’t start without Irish — 150 going round : ENCIRCLING

24-across – By using Toilet Twinning, starts to reach target : BUTT

25-across – No end to the growth in snooker : THWART

26-across – Potty-trains baby, ignoring books on hygiene : SANITARY

1-down – Engagement ring’s broken into two, with real suffering : WATERLOO

2-down – Pensioner wanting pee on way hops here : OAST

3-down – Leak, as Jimmy’s overlooked sieve : RIDDLE

4-down – Nearly reclued first of toilet-related anagrams due to reprimand : LECTURE

5-down – Reduce or eliminate wrinkles : DECREASE

6-down – Hollow trough beneath raised seat forming primitive loo : THUNDERBOX

7-down – Producer of Grease finds motion in UN toilet left by alien : OILNUT

13-down – Pompous fiction distributed in China : PONTIFICAL

16-down – Toilet a collaborator erected, coming within budget : ALLOCATE

18-down – Sanitation’s essential: leads to life advances, vitally and as of right : LAVATORY

19-down – Most like what’s scattered around in this sea : ASHIEST

21-down – Eye angles made by bent end of toilet chain : CANTHI

22-down – 24 across following detailed schedule : FAGEND

24-down – Baby’s No 1, when one’s expected No 2? : BETA

8-across – Type of 25 cross, not entirely rejected : TRAPDOOR

9-across – Scrub over a regular report : ANNUAL

10-across – Time that flies : BIRD

11-across – East End houses don’t have the credentials to accommodate white 25 : BLACKWIDOW

12-across – Disaster — failure is another synonym, completely obvious for starters : FIASCO

14-across – Fine man for philosophy : THINKING

15-across – Eternal fool poked by stick with malice in the end : AGELESS

17-across – 25, left defender? : REDBACK

20-across – Start reviewing it with caveat : ACTIVATE

22-across – In goal, attempt catches : TRENDY

23-across – One going down for a long time, a reviled criminal in prison, is on for release : PEARLDIVER

24-across – A type of 25 in ebbing stream : WOLF

25-across – Do what you do endlessly, 17? That’s you! : SPIDER

26-across – 25 hasn’t uncoiled, moth initially trapped : HUNTSMAN

1-down – Behind barrier, little time to go over it : TRAILING

2-down – One perhaps eyed second dessert : SPUD

3-down – Cutting reserves, a mistake : BOOBOO

4-down – Distance across doorstep, perhaps, that’s halved : BREADTH

5-down – Bet party gets seat : BACKSIDE

6-down – Unspecified number, crime in the Spanish capital going up, never going down? : UNSINKABLE

7-down – Bloke captures Aussie native in desert : MAROON

13-down – 25 that can jump — rating one degree : SALTIGRADE

16-down – Model son to give father a thrashing? That’s about right! : STANDARD

18-down – Scoundrel I summon up in US car : CADILLAC

19-down – Lift tool, say, the axe : HEAVEHO

21-down – Keen to bury leak, head-er deleted as sinister : CREEPY

22-down – Bottom disappearing, the king is upon one! : THRONE

24-down – Innermost part of bowel remains clean : WASH

8-across – City in Arabic translated as Italian boot : CALABRIA

9-across – Drug-taking composer greeting American-style rock group drained of energy, forming another band : BEACH

10-across – Kind doctor Rex with line in old-fashioned salutation : GOOD

11-across – Shakes off visitor ban : VIBRATIONS

12-across – Straits can be heard : SOUNDS

14-across – Bean collected by Rose and checked : REPULSED

16-across – Round variety of raisin associated with a deity : OSIRIAN

18-across – Seaside plant’s unvarying energy : STATICE

21-across – Velocity regulator using gravitational force in preference to negative resistance : GOVERNOR

23-across – See 10 : MORROW

24-across – Crude African oil which has a major fault : CALIFORNIA

26-across – See 9 : BOYS

27-across – Tom 26, possibly, wants retro outfit with hollowed lapels : GIRLS

28-across – It’s a mark around small tree : TAMARISK

1-down – Insubstantial state, not watertight : VAPOROUS

2-down – Exposed, ring up lawyers, having reached end of line : LAID

3-down – English writer’s drink : GRAVES

4-down – Major character of Shaw, one introduced by two snatches of music : BARBARA

5-down – Coptic bishop books into mutual help organis­ation : ABBA

6-down – Goliath, ear-bending a saint worshipper : HAGIOLATER

7-down – Risk a section of the church abandoning Latin : CHANCE

13-down – Axon displays cool courage taking roughage : NERVEFIBRE

15-down – Fit revolving stage after lead’s made an exit : PET

17-down – Old foreign coin without a name : ANN

19-down – Tipless battleaxe is my creative way of unfairly favouring allies : CRONYISM

20-down – Rock group’s No 1 passed onto Italian earl : GRANITE

22-down – Zip attached to cooker shade : ORANGE

23-down – End up restricting Sam’s development, creating a bad atmosphere : MIASMA

25-down – City’s abbreviated text breaking agreement : OMSK

26-down – See 2 : BARE

1-across – Boarder’s entrance examination’s ending in silence, physicist heard : GANGPLANK

6-across – Wine — how’s it going down the Champs Elysées? No comment! : CAVA

8-across – He wrote something spicy about Mikado’s principal : CUMMINGS

9-across – Subtlety is absent in pest : NUANCE

10-across – Political bloc spilling claret : CARTEL

11-across – Tom, try Beaujolais nouveau, reason for party celebration? : ABSOLUTE

12-across – Barolo’s capital, just brilliant! : BRIGHT

15-across – Ecstasy and sin with vino in motion picture : ENVISION

16-across – Cunning popular in force as authoritarian : MARTINET

19-across – Termite’s heading beyond place for an insect : LOCUST

21-across – One wine knocked back, then another oddly? That’s the reality! : ITSAFACT

22-across – See 3 : BEATER

24-across – See 26 : DAMORE

25-across – See 11 : MAJORITY

26-across – Instrument lout stuffed with cheese, filling hollow one : OBOE

27-across – No revolution in US state is darkly active : NOCTURNAL

1-down – Being worshipped around Utrecht primarily, a cheese : GOUDA

2-down – Label the Guardian revolutionary : NAMETAG

3-down – Cheese round new table for garage worker : PANEL

4-down – Calm, outstanding union leader, equally wise : ASSUAGE

5-down – Man is up for scrofula : KINGSEVIL

6-down – Drink with endless joy, a wine : CHABLIS

7-down – Those charged in Richmond, say, for holidays : VACATIONS

13-down – Possible Sunday lunch, as whisky served up in mug : ROASTLAMB

14-down – Bird climbing a mountain to circle a tropical tree : TONKABEAN

17-down – Drink wine that’s fragrant : TEAROSE

18-down – Greatly revered in epic, I met Othello on the rise : TOTEMIC

20-down – Upset feeling, as series about King Arthur ends : CHAGRIN

22-down – Small and tasteful, insect-flavoured gravy, might you say? : BIJOU

23-down – Praise old airline to the sky : EXTOL