CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1. I can bet how ministers will meet (7)

4. What sort of a cure-all can a pea be? (7)

8. One’s distinctive character may glow all around one (4)

9. In the opening season it grips men, it might appear (10)

11. The language of the figures we use (6)

12. How she rails about being bald! (8)

14. Get through a net Peter put out (9)

15. A vegetable that may come from Stockholm (5)

17. Are returning to the Southeast to wipe it out (5)

18. Rubbed and polished, and maybe brushed in (9)

19. Wine that lies around in a circle (8)

21. It’s not as important in doubles, serving (6)

23. Nice men let fruit grow wild (10)

24. Network used in manufacture of hems (4)

25. Sort of tyre one could rate in red (7)

26. Young chicken it’s sin to make soup of (7)

DOWN

1. Parable PC wrote about a wild fruit (4-5)

2. Here one may have to descend for a snip (7,8)

3. The sort to write letters on a machine (4)

4. Old ships commissioned to serve: a trip was arranged for them (10)

5. Sort of reign that runs in Africa (5)

6. The rumours Mandarin starts as a parlour game (7,8)

7. Regions in particular Eastern counties (5)

10. When small, one could make it tell (6)

13. Aerated as the water is, road can’t be got round (10)

15. One who shirks work to do winter sport, very curtailed (6)

16. Pain-killer body produces in her pond perhaps (9)

19. A fast vehicle caught by camera? Certainly! (5)

20. A feudal title will, for example, lie around (5)

22. Picture of the pots that turned up (4)