Weekend crossword

ACROSS

1 Shrink? It’s a disadvantage (8)

5 200 in mine pluralised? Happens (6) 9 Father’s blade is like an opensesame

(8)

10 Ah — a fastdisappearing vehicle;

she’ll reverse all that (6)

12 Trout grilled in coach (5)

13 Swaggered in two colours about the

street (9)

14 Plot to enter secret society, an unlikely

alliance (3,10)

16 . . . conspiring in production of a quiet

clutch of chicks? (8,1,4)

20 Wild fowl: number seen in southwest

— and, gosh, southeast (45) 21 Mischievous imp gamblin’ (5) 23 Shrinks birds (6)

24 Riddle of the Sunday coach (8) 25 Strongly recommend Sussex

horticultural shows (6)

26 Rosa, with diet, can achieve a heavenly

body (8)

DOWN

1 Vice tax holds record (6) 2 A Sunday collection is something

worth having (5)

3 Furnished with a shady nook, debtor’s

abed (7)

4 Arab ice melts round vegetables in

tropical waters (9,3)

6 Kiln in California, by the sea (7)

7 The greatest say more than anyone

else (9)

8 Friends turn up and rush away any old

how (8) 11 Fighting women, e.g., fast set, fur flying

(12)

14 Toe distorted in very big way —

perhaps I can massage it (9)

15 Henry’s in a huff — it’s the way a

body’s made (8)

17 A chafferer, her Al, being shifty about a

horse (7)

18 Traps worm with plum (7)

19 Caught in a net, one’s turned florid (6) 22 Exotic fruit makes husband leave (5)