CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1 Bone in fish – meal putting me

off (6)

5 Country singer returned

offering a few notes maybe (8) 9 A reason for empty chairs in our

country? (5,5)

10 Scottish poet, not the first, to

make pots (4)

11 Strip of metal or wood to chuck

outside (8)

12 Game with helpful person endlessly offering set of rules (6)

13 Bridge partner of North facing

censure (4)

15 It's certainly not helping

mother, getting old (8)

18 Asian fellows taken in by

heretic (8)

19 Plant knocked over in dark

office (4)

21 Trick needed with very good sea

food (6)

23 Close friend – solitary, it's said,

facing position of defeat (4,4) 25 Pollution maybe from

industry (4)

26 Odd bits of old material specially fashioned for customer (6-4) 27 We will be not half embarrassed

and polite (4-4)

28 Polish or north European

language being heard (6)

DOWN

2 Sound coming through the

mouth? Through the ear! (5) 3 Power one observed in catty type leading a new church (9)

4 Boy's story probed by a

theologian (6)

5 Heads condemning wrong decided on a new course of action? (7,4,4)

6 Unhealthy group erred, from

what we hear and see (8) 7 Something indistinct and black

that may be on book's cover (5) 8 Deliverer of goods tricks uninformed worker needing dispatch (9)

14 You'd want me in an emergency?

I'd let you down! (9)

16 One fellow helping another at an

American match (9)

17 Cleric involved in secret sin

immediately shown up (8) 20 Single old females escape for

adventure perhaps (3,3) 22 Maureen is on phone – somewhere for overnight stay needed (5)

24 Fusses, there being a list of

upcoming jobs? (2-3)