CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

21/4

ACROSS

1. Animal Leo provided cot for (6)

4. Fast pace with which record goal was achieved (6)

9. The sincere listener is sent packing (7)

10. Don’t go on shuffling aces if starting euchre (5)

11. Metal spike turning in a laptop (4)

12. Prejudice one detected among graduates (4)

13. Light refreshment it’s quite acceptable to have inside (3)

15. Swallow air returned by stopper (4)

16. Sound like a bittern when it’s a good time for business (4)

19. Sign before Virgo starts leaving eleven out (3)

21. The yellow you don’t finish with a half of milk (4)

22. Stand for mugs at the gallows (4)

24. Annoyed by kid re-organising it (5)

25. Dog rarely barks if jeans are treated in bismuth (7)

26. Calling one man back with gin cocktail (6)

27. Uni qualification takes sixty minutes (6)

DOWN

1. With 999,999 others, is rare indeed (3,2,1,7)

2. Get near rig somehow, depending on the listener (7)

3. Start something anybody can enter (4)

5. A forebear shown on a crest like this (8)

6. The smallest amount to turn stale (5)

7. Brotherhood painter might appear, her tile being broken (3-10)

8. Take everything off this sort of cartoon (5)

14. Got oneself out but continued batting? (6,2)

17. Jolly right to be a man of the sea (7)

18. Theatre in the round? (5)

20. Teased strands for caulking a tree rum, but not right (5)

23. Man is to let the end off (4)

YESTERDAY’S SOLUTION

Across: 1. Practice 7. Chime 8. Rustler 9. Builder 10. Duly

12. Neither 14. Cremona 17. Spur 18. Special 21. Epistle 22. Alias

23. Speckled

1. Parody 2. Absolute 3. Talk 4. Carbon 5. Mild 6. Terror

7. Cuisine 11. Stories 13. Hospital 14. Casual 15. Asleep

16. Friend 19. Evil 20. Disc

Down: