GUARDIAN CRYPTIC CROSSWORD NO. 27,916

ACROSS

1 CID's possibly back in

trouble with this (7,4) 9 Large `astral' cast

might be … (3-4) 10 ... backing Scot, singer briefly appearing in African capital (7) 11 Element symbolised

by O, oddly (9) 12 Duck eaten by greedy

duck (5) 13 Contents of clutch bag finally found in, say, front of skip (4) 14 Voters potentially have online reader worried (10) 16 One might tear along

this … (6,4) 19 … bank enthusiastically — eventually fishing, initially for carp (4) 21 Apart from 50% of OAPs, too lazy to go round foreign capital (5) 22 Informed about hard right, she changed point of entry (9) 24 Most attractive female consumed by sexual desire (7) 25 Charge American a pound, placed on account (7) 26 Chicken satay and tikka starters at lunchtime, current in the western US (11)

DOWN

1 Condemned lifeless yoghurt in holier-thanthou fashion (4-11) 2 Entry passage given coat by paint roller (5) 3 Someone adversarial,

extremely biased (7) 4 Driving mounted policemen around a lot (7) 5 Somewhat contrary parrot, a timid parrot (8) 6 Sweet shade of brown hair product (9,6) 7,16 Heading off, worn out, to laze around taking in unknown song from Chicago (6,6) 8,20 Do become confused, following female nonsense (6-6) 15 Sort of light source OK in the pink? (4,4) 16 See 7 17 Fool has broken child's toy in half? Be forgiving (3,2,2) 18 Opera covering polar opposites? Wisdom was famously one of them (7) 20 See 8 23 Painting on plaster that's dry and firm (5)