CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

ACROSS 1 Wander about with son in lodgings (7) 5 Starter, perhaps, requiring

study to get flavour (7) 9 Drink round lake chap’s left for

cold meal (10,5) 10 Mo not leader? Doubtful (4) 11 Hundred students hope to pass

this rock? (5) 12 Drooping fruit cut close to shop

(4) 15 Improve two bridge players by

luck? Not principally (7) 16 Individual entering seaside

venue is trail-blazer (7) 17 Article on port, town in

Hampshire (7) 19 Dry wind is over African country

– medic takes flight (7) 21 Drop, we hear, is level among

others (4) 22 A learner falls behind American

university standard (5) 23 Inflammation? Sadly, yes – temperature must be contained (4) 26 What could be rhetorical skill –

or lack of certainty (15) 27 Support aim by Arab, say, in East

End (7) 28 What customers want a shop to be – ‘customary’? Editor needed! (7) DOWN 1 Strip in seedy joint interrupted by English priest (7) 2 Hit the roof? Some do it when diving (2,3,3,4,3) 3 Limit club – bar women! (4) 4 Mention of amount secured for an unknown person (7) 5 Tanning device plus man for a massage (7) 6 Like an eyesore, unedifying largely at the edges? (4) 7 Unexpectedly eccentric kind of swindle (10,5) 8 Loser prone to sprawl around house (2-5) 13 Rogue part of church given hearing (5) 14 Seek to win over legal institution (5) 17 What might be quaint and last in furniture? (7) 18 Gentleman put up with single fried dish (7) 19 Soprano with energy, a singer and swimmer (3,4) 20 Ace I had cited with singular vision? (3-4) 24 Revolutionary deserters showing sign of military rank (4) 25 Lush part of meadow in Oxfordshire (4)