Clues

5-across – Many a dairymaid turns for lack of help : MYRIAD

6-across – Pitch, if strong, rates … : TARIFF

9-across – … as keen, with loud Verdi composition : FERVID

10-across – One’s post getting one a place in Egypt : ISMAILIA

11-across – Soft music for a duet : PAIR

12-across – Effect of using energy endlessly playing bingo : GREENHOUSE

13-across – Cure the internal lesion for fear of infection spreading : HEALTHSCARE

18-across – Aversion to competitive sport? : RACEHATRED

21-across – One is short of undies, possibly : NUDE

22-across – Charlotte’s victim gets no reward in the long run : MARATHON

23-across – Heartache suffered by girl over a soldier : ANGINA

24-across – Time for a short interval : SECOND

25-across – Wine can make one a most learned judge : PORTIA

1-down – English leader makes a playwright cross : TRAVERSE

2-down – Toady given a small coin in wrought gold : LAPDOG

3-down – After damage bent coin is ringing true : HARMONIC

4-down – Between parties one feels the urge : LIBIDO

5-down – Woman in a frenzy, mad about another : MAENAD

7-down – Films to start you raving are insubstantial : FLIMSY

8-down – Two or three to a cell? … : TIMESHARING

14-down – … the spare in prison having been turned down with disgust … : LOATHING

15-down – … whence a vagabond makes his escape by an exit : RUNAGATE

16-down – A friend one is taking to the dance hall : PALAIS

17-down – Dig any odd part of 25 in Poland : GDYNIA

19-down – Dignitary of Roman Church about to get the chop before … : EXARCH

20-down – … senior priest keeping company with one of a lesser order : DEACON

1-across – Draw a drink and beam : PORTRAY

5-across – Rather big girl – has to be dressed differently : LARGISH

10-across – Make a move to provide porridge : STIR

11-across – Calls to mind resolution about rally : RECOLLECTS

12-across – Caught a worker retiring on the quiet to have forty winks : CATNAP

13-across – Antigone reading may be getting the thumbs-down : NEGATION

14-across – The longest day : WEDNESDAY

16-across – Aims to live on! : MEANS

17-across – A most appealing French accent : ACUTE

19-across – The bloomer of a witless push-over : AMARYLLIS

23-across – Fruit coming by sea, a variety of apples : PEARMAIN

24-across – He wrote Gold, the Endless Gold : AUTHOR

26-across – The teenager making a scene and told off : ADOLESCENT

27-across – Blue as a result of getting a duck? : ANIL

28-across – The old king observing a sign of advancing age : GREYING

29-across – Journalists going before their boss get flattened! : PRESSED

2-down – Shock at rogue’s twisting : OUTRAGE

3-down – Tedious routine sent up in an Italian place : TURIN

4-down – Relevant article for petty officers : APROPOS

6-down – State support in beer production : ALLEGE

7-down – A plentiful supply of excellent wood : GREATDEAL

8-down – Record collection many have : SETDOWN

9-down – Defamatory reporter responsible for devastated man’s cold anger : SCANDALMONGER

15-down – Greek character seen around at assembly, of course : NATURALLY

18-down – Some reached Dartmoor in the West Country : CHEDDAR

20-down – About the current height for power station equipment : REACTOR

21-down – Hero-worship can make one so idle! : IDOLISE

22-down – A minister’s standard issue : PARSON

25-down – Charges could well be dropped with some sorrow : TEARS

1-across – Copy company used in recording feature of Mass : CAPECOD

5-across – Misbehaving is close to the bone : OSSICLE

9-across – When small change keeps standard reached in judo rising? : ASCENDANT

10-across – Irrational number in sequence – pi? : RATIO

11-across – Support offered 14’s neighbour : PROP

12-across – Vet taking gamble on film script : SCREENPLAY

14-across – Rugby player – a pro? : HOOKER

15-across – Seriously concerned with how decimals work, close to innumerate : INTENSE

16-across – Car designer has problem computing storage space, mostly : BUGATTI

18-across – Hooked by meat, tucked in : HAMATE

20-across – Sketches of Cambridge : FOOTLIGHTS

21-across – One part of the opera : OPUS

24-across – Sound version of material taped : AUDIO

25-across – How baleen is processed? : WHALEBONE

26-across – Too much time consumed with obvious intentions : OVERTLY

27-across – English deserter harboured by family getting a bit horny? : KERATIN

1-down – Get to grips with illegal parking restriction : CLAMP

2-down – Choose to finish early – unexpectedly cool bit of wind : PICCOLO

3-down – Rabbit on in company, vacuously : CONY

4-down – Had reservations about using this route : DUALCARRIAGEWAY

5-down – Correctly ascertaining one’s railway connections? : ONTHERIGHTTRACK

6-down – Arrange release from prison sentence when winter finishes : SPRINGTIME

7-down – Some Spaniards are at a family gathering : CATALAN

8-down – It’s a bit creepy to celebrate jumped-up local inhabitants : ECOTYPE

13-down – Quickly dismiss satirical item, badly let down, perhaps? : SKITTLEOUT

16-down – Bill endangered this species? Expert takes a look : BUFFALO

17-down – Tynesider, say, must turn up or fail at some stage : GEORDIE

19-down – Warning about interest rate that helps plant survive : TAPROOT

22-down – Twitcher’s almost last in hide to see birds flying : SKEIN

23-down – Put up with undisguised chatting : BEAR

1-across – Last year’s winner not skating – he’s got a job : OFFICEHOLDER

8-across – Work to amuse the audience could be an illusion : OPTICAL

9-across – Emphatically he who could be Flemish… : HIMSELF

11-across – … was successful about greeting in pseudo-French, not Flemish : WALLOON

12-across – River of silence, with name among the nameless : SHANNON

13-across – Grandma pregnant? She must be kidding! : NANNY

14-across – Resident’s home with Dickens’s leader and servant : INDWELLER

16-across – Application for cooking meat in church council : TREATMENT

19-across – Nick a second duck : STEAL

21-across – I – my husband also – need break with continuity : BUSMANS

23-across – See 21 : HOLIDAY

24-across – Ancient city time insufficient, I’m afraid, among single characters at liberty: we purchase only seconds : THEBEST

25-across – See 24 : AREFREE

26-across – See 24 : THINGSINLIFE

1-down – Bunting from church door to lancet window : ORTOLAN

2-down – See 22 : FACTORY

3-down – It appears in the spring of an antelope in a moving start : CELANDINE

4-down – Laughs like dry moats : HAHAS

5-down – Shearers’ party hit the hay : LAMBALE

6-down – 10 with real potential never finishing : ETERNAL

7-down – Bookmaker required? I doubt it : YOUWANTTOBET

10-down – Playtime for piano among stringed instruments, final heats : FUNERALPYRES

15-down – Wife and child I leave in agricultural building : DUTCHBARN

17-down – He slept, wrongly, with Scots girl : ELSPETH

18-down – Following notes in following part-exchange : TRADEIN

19-down – Romance in a long dress was said to have finished Mozart : SALIERI

20-down – Back at last – steed wouldn’t start : ENDORSE

22-down – What makes widows at 10 good enough? : SATIS

1-across – The cure that’s ‘Buy now, pay later!’ – their failing : RETAILTHERAPY

10-across – Birdie surpassed by Coleridge’s handicap … : ALBATROSS

11-across – … he’s right by his sacred river : RALPH

12-across – Beer from the cask, Vassili! : KVASS

13-across – Baseball player in knickers and vest : SHORTSTOP

14-across – Time Ed Lear went off his rocker : TREADLE

16-across – Movement of cattle is turning south : KINESIS

18-across – Call for melon in the freezer : CRYOGEN

20-across – Society leaving partisan destroyed port : TRAPANI

21-across – The old revel in the black bat’s reign : NIGHTRULE

23-across – So Milton’s pair of sirens left without choice : BLEST

24-across – Old type of road stone : METAL

25-across – I’m one Mr Hulot, on as a substitute : IMITATION

26-across – I might make allowances, possibly starting now. God! My pennies! : SPENDINGMONEY

2-down – Nobbling race outsider could be right by me : EMBRACERY

3-down – Lowest female staff members : ALTOS

4-down – Give the once-over once or twice? : LOOKSEE

5-down – Has hit support for the supplicant : HASSOCK

6-down – Land of royal double trouble. : RURITANIA

7-down – Director of experimental : PILOT

8-down – Friedman’s forces restoring credit to make money : MARKETECONOMY

9-down – 1’s acolyte seconds that passion, perhaps : SHOPASSISTANT

15-down – Like libretto’s language, not a prescription to stir the heart : DIGITALIN

17-down – Bad septicaemia killing last two in the continuum : SPACETIME

19-down – Sea creatures Athena utilised by extraction : NAUTILI

20-down – Putting one’s quarry at bay, say! : TREEING

22-down – Gathering everything together under protest, starts to rise : GETUP

23-down – Could this be a negative bender? : BEANO