CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1. Car-owners I’d upset proved to be shoemakers (11)

8. Chairs to be arranged for divine transport (8)

9. It is taken by the church to be an irritation (4)

10. The measure of verse is not an imperial one (5)

13. Impale one on a long tongue of land (4)

16. Nevertheless, it is flat (4)

17. An African is, to the German, blue in the middle (4)

18. Is sort of warm in one’s manner (4)

20. Rudely push one’s way through to the scow (5)

24. Is it torn from one by the landlord? (4)

25. One relived it, in a sort of uniform (8)

26. Fly to nature for a change, or with luck (11)

DOWN

2. Drink nothing up from stone (4)

3. Use the car and hurry one on (5)

4. To which one comes, single, with double intent (5)

5. Leaves stage set perhaps around eleven (5)

6. Vessels welcome as the party begins (3-8)

7. Wish nut diet could be used around Pentecost (11)

11. Seek a lift with little Tom (5)

12. Live coal is partly dismembered (5)

14. May look sullen as a fish (4)

15. It may be the head runner (4)

19. Stop one needing mine to make up one’s mind (5)

21. A right of distraint that’s foreign (5)

22. For example, tar could be super (5)

23. Through which one is put, suffering (4)