CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1 Slob must stay, alas, as indication of rank (6,6)

8 Thus girl revisited Nigerian city (5)

9 Can countries combine to provide funding? (9)

11 Almost leaving car to get gingerbread (6) 12 Pieces of beef – everything except bottom (8)

14 Welsh guy with drug aroma is doing disappearing act (10)

15 Man turns up in Old Testament country (4) 18 Fiery saint from 10 (4)

19 True Romans laid out how many parts of the wholes are present (10)

21 Mutiny of French betrothed (8) 23 Prohibit entrance to the person going for a swim (6)

25 Twinkling star in the distance one sees in religious movement (9) 26 Steaming open Greek letter given over to Royal Institution (5)

27 Be depressed, getting punishment that’s cruelly unfair (5,3,4)

DOWN

1 Sweet tree alarms pug in storm (5,4) 2 Donkey was sick when attacked (8) 3 Language that forms part of our duty (4) 4 Runs wildly round bar to find something to sit on outside (10)

5 Unable to speak, it’s mum, when injured (6) 6 Nothing, empty, egg-shaped (5) 7 Catholic claimant aged before bids were in (3,9)

10 In the south-east, find identical uneasy rest alien to where Big Bird lives (6,6) 13 Being oddly sick on sailing boat, invoke wild survival skills (10)

16 Brave Richard ran the oil business (9) 17 Publication that contains a number of shots (8)

20 Work a bounder took up from the beginning (2,4)

22 Foreign Office feared squad taking last refugee in ditch (5)

24 Women’s group take on further education of married woman (4)