CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

Across

1. Might select first egg that’s sky-blue (7)

4. Had high hopes of getting praised otherwise (7)

9. Term a lama applied to one’s university (4,5)

10. Bet it didn’t start as a stroll (5)

11. One who followed Zeno, being indifferent to pleasure or pain (5)

12. About to drink lees, starts the fire again (9)

13. Chart Alan made of a fraud (9)

16. An unseeing Venetian, for one (5)

17. Taxi at home to airliner’s space for passengers (5)

18. Stole proud line from it (9)

20. Renown lad achieved by being a man of property (9)

23. Nick would do very menial work (5)

25. A nine turns out to be empty (5)

26. Refusing to accept one is sinking (9)

27. Old schoolteachers were great painters (7)

28. A gift that’s ready at hand (7)

Down

1. Puts the form in charge of great work (7)

2. Nothing more than a leg for dancing under the bar (5)

3. Monocle is to be replaced by a punctuation mark (9)

4. Chemical compound to be got from trees (5)

5. A S African freak rain burst (9)

6. One in a scheme is unadorned (5)

7. Revolt that might rile noble (9)

8. Put vinaigrette on salad and clothes on oneself (7)

14. Eastern Europeans modelling, in balsa, an altered form (9) 15. Savoury pastes may need pasta for them (9)

16. Animal pedigree shows it could be old lion (5-4)

17. An element and, roughly, its abbreviation (7)

19. Gild the mixture with great pleasure (7)

21. Old schoolfellow could see it is too fat (5)

22. Go over what’s been said about the caper (5)

24. It may be active or passive, tenor or bass (5)

YESTERDAY’S SOLUTION

Across: 7. Grandiloquent 8. Anglophiles 12. Recess 14. Ravine

16. Poured 18. Starch 19. Rear admiral 23. Comprehensive

Down: 1. Aria 2. Snug 3. Pilots 4. Mother 5. Full 6. Onus 9. Noctule 10. Eritrea 11. Mesh 12. Ripe 13. She 15. Apt 17. Dealer 18. Summer 19. Rook 20. Alph 21. Ruse 22. Live