CROSSWORD

Clues across

4. Introduce American to woman’s home (5,2) 7. Slipped the Queen claret (5) 9. A top fairy appears from October onwards (6) 10. Spoilt having torch under the blankets? … (8) 11. … and with, I see, internalised liquorice flavouring (7) 12. You and I may be said with victory to be indebted by fifty (5) 14. Idly swallowing ale blended in a perfect world (7) 16. More obvious, being less beautiful (7) 19. Meat recently harvested has right to be left inside (5) 20. He stars leaping around as the most reckless (7) 22. Trying to get a tan around the end of August? Sensational! (8) 24. Bishop takes part in hearing related to the iwi (6) 25. Leave the car with a coat (5) 26. Twenty-four hours without a mean, powerful family (7)

Clues down

1. React badly when taking in nitrogen for a spell (6) 2. Dive rudely into dinner, being unenlightened (8) 3. A Roman Catholic hospital chief (4) 4. Dress down and the opposite with hairdo (7) 5. Rotten, raunchier, back perhaps with capital (9) 6. The head alone is a person of negligible importance (6) 8. Stay and prosper without love (5) 13. The wiles I used deviously and the tactful fabrications (5,4) 15. The genteel manner affected as the French hothead performed after hours (3-2-3) 17. A suet pudding rally ends in mouth (7) 18. Cold fellow, unbending (6) 19. An attempt to incriminate if put wrong (3-2) 21. Silk-like, for example, with metal inside (6) 23. A bit of a man or mouse? Average (4)