Cryptic Crossword

ACROSS

7 Way to achieve entrance as backward children, English learners (8)

9 Having dropped off former PM’s article, returned (6)

10 Area following shameful action in 19th-century war zone (6)

11 Keep a man in it, needing to be reformed (8)

12 Previously referred to supervisors in a note I’d composed (14)

15 Cold cut of meat, or game (4) 17 Female is clothed in this, possibly (5)

19 As part of black comedy, turned to ridicule (4)

20 With regret, a poet logically has log moved (14)

23 Odd man is absurdly appearing in suit (8)

25 Ambiguous prophecy, or a non-U thing like this? (6)

27 Eliot the writer? Not he (6) 28 Man on board protecting a wild ox, going by boat (8)

DOWN

1 Odd characters in photos are said to be pitiable (4)

2 Coat initially put on demure monarch (6)

3 Severely criticise second strike (4)

4 Rising that’s trapping one on island, South Seas paradise (6)

5 What’s excellent about a metal or another (8)

6 Police raid disrupted magazine (10)

8 Mathematical tasks are set up for Dutch scholar (7)

13 Given legal status supporting African country’s education (10)

14 Is one crazy? That’s what we hear (5)

16 It helps to know one’s place when one returns to work (8)

18 Essay about current record of events in book group (7) 21 Sounded like pigs in old used pen (6)

22 State that’s normal as Kansas at heart (6)

24 Benefit from something made from rice (4)

26 Makers of chains, we hear, for wild cat (4)