GUARDIAN CRYPTIC CROSSWORD NO. 27,480

ACROSS 1 Climax that’s close, if in posh hot pants (5,6) 9 Maybe Irishman gathering lily in bower (7) 10 Low walls queen knocked over in burial place (7) 11 Overseer of colony’s alarmed cry, breaking pager (9) 12 Not a sound president backing Arabian kingdom (5) 13 Land bordering

northern cove (4) 14 Make impure drug, cutting what mature people pay (10) 16 Misery, as loot

gets left (10) 19 Current ebbing

for a change (4) 21 Belief in crusade

is misplaced (5) 22 Happen to find

terrapins at sea (9) 24 Heroin imported by organised crime, a monstrous thing (7) 25 During onset of violence, agreed to be called up (7) 26 Sell fruit outside of Dieppe for everyone (4,2,5) DOWN 1 A boring dim person interested in being a scientist (15) 2 Suppose it’s round and long (5) 3 Love fish, eating best marine creature (7) 4 Perhaps, like Napoleon, avoiding a risk (7) 5 Streams of people arriving like baby Moses? (8) 6 Working man’s marched like an emblem of his kind? (6,3,6) 7 What physio may use to kill yak making ascent (3,3) 8 Daughter admitted to knowing online programs (6) 15 Female left male lover carrying a torch (8) 16 Notice short

fascist’s allure (6) 17 Spooner’s to install curtain? It’s a potential danger (7) 18 It could be Mailer’s approach to literature (7) 20 Tense and feeble, like the rural upper classes? (6) 23 Number that’s square,

like four or sixteen (5)