CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

Across 1. Close relatives don’t get top marks and little credit for the scrawls (11)

9. Used by reporters who don’t know shorthand? (8,5) 10. At loggerheads with the bird (4)

11. Moms once made soup (8) 13. Capital covered but no father of chooks (5)

14. Fiddled then curtsied (5) 19. Ain’t Thai - is from somewhere else (8)

21. Get tinned pork on the net (4) 23. Guarantee Rudd to become a degree closer (13) 24. Litigants up for appropriating (11) Down 2. Dream of ham, Eric (7)

3. A bit of the audiotape (4) 4. French sweet is a cracker (6) 5. Interim post orally oႇered or taken partly by someone else (8) 6. The Àash of light you get from a single amethyst (5)

7. A separate role? (5)

8. Runt leaves the insulters for the islands (5)

12. Potatoes e.g. and what a pig does to them (4,4) 15. Describe the axle pin (7) 16. Create a song and dance about the furrow on the roadway (5)

17. Drawbar released for part of the winery (6)

18. It’s a jewel of a beer (5) 20. Tired, fed up and no longer have in possession (3,2) 22. Tide turns for a change (4)

Yesterday

Across: 1. Coiffure, 5. Thus, 8. Rhubarbs, 10. Dado, 11. Lea, 13. Altar,

14. Prick, 15. Nearby, 17. Matrix, 19. Afire, 20. Irish, 22. RCA, 24. Sean,

25. Religion, 26. Reek, 27. Wet-nurse.

Down: 1. Curtain raiser, 2. Inuit, 3. Foam rubber, 4. Else, 6. Heavier, 7. Stock exchange, 9. Blot, 12. Apparition, 16. Animate, 18. Brae, 21. Icier, 23. Crow.