Cryptic crossword

ACROSS

1. It is like a monarch issuing an invitation (6)

8. House it’s a misfortune to have in Virginia (5)

9. How might cop meet with difficulty, yet take part? (7)

11. Pending u-turn, is at last finishing like this (6,2)

12. Tumbler will begin gymnastics with a girl (5)

15. Fiddler who got the right one wrong (4)

16. Conjunction has returned the building-block of life (3)

17. Supreme way to put one’s back up (4)

19. Add embellishment and/or a mixture of it (5)

21. Cool as copper twice has to be when Mister is around (8)

24. Deep-sea operatives going east: that’s different (7)

25. Tank-top and trouser-bottom, dismissed by a swimmer (5)

26. Modest of me to make a comeback in rude assembly (6)

DOWN

2. Quietly sunk in the earth, it will ruin things (5)

3. I am to get a job with gold, but I am not who I say (8)

4. Get a different sort of people paying to see match (4)

5. What’s the use of a Valentine if one is included in it? (5)

6. It may have its day, Jack! (4)

7. Be niggling when criticising a swimmer (4)

10. Net torn as one fished and got all wound up in it (9)

12. Going to lose heart if medal is awarded (4)

13. Have a waking vision of Mary, dead though she might be (8)

14. Call for attention which one will ignore (4)

18. Deliver blow that will leave it in an endless sort of mess (5)

20. He gets up this part of the stair (5)

21. Second half of the fruit beds (4)

22. Fiddle the books and perhaps put it on back-burner (4)

23. Outside of bacon is right in the end of the lard (4)