Daily Answers

1-across – Essential element of jam trade : TRAFFIC

5-across – Launch of biography : LIFTOFF

9-across – Label report of familiar ex-captain : GUCCI

10-across – Able to take part in sport, preserving body : COMPETENT

11-across – Night visitor with cash for discarded item of dining equipment : TOOTHFAIRY

12-across – Soften back massage, taking in middle of shoulders : BLUR

14-across – One wearing tailored tar strides, which are awful to get into : DIRESTRAITS

18-across – Scoff at Delhi’s odd, non-independent support for capital punishment : THESCAFFOLD

21-across – Goo: youngster swallows litre! : PULP

22-across – Bush given a life without need, tension and Henry : BLACKTHORN

25-across – Top of London Eye can’t, when revolving without energy/gas : ACETYLENE

26-across – Marie Stopes’s housing sign : ARIES

27-across – There’s nothing in waste, having lost US city : DETROIT

28-across – Nutty quality Dan introduced randomly into jam : MADNESS

1-down – Legless and short? They’re just the opposite : TIGHTS

2-down – Secure a job, almost : ANCHOR

3-down – Line in scrap, which might be cut for a cockpit : FLIGHTDECK

4-down – Doubly firm, top grade drink : COCOA

5-down – Scour rocks after meat and drink : LAMBRUSCO

6-down – Charge round opening of roof on the house : FREE

7-down – Produced too many eggs with a coating : OVERLAID

8-down – Visionary sporting tutu: first time away : FUTURIST

13-down – Plastic, offbeat, direct comedian : CREDITCARD

15-down – Almost sated inside, monarch’s stand-in is radiant : REFULGENT

16-down – Daughter, hit with much cash, backs dramatist : STOPPARD

17-down – Determined underworld criminal : HELLBENT

19-down – River rats patrol : POLICE

20-down – Number’s up is spiritual knowledge : GNOSIS

23-down – Finest 50,000 sheets of paper in modern terms : CREAM

24-down – A spinner’s short period in work : GYRO

1-across – Cut it and keep quiet : CACKLE

4-across – Am taken aback, unhappy about the flag’s position : MASTHEAD

9-across – Companion of an American star? : STRIPE

10-across – Getting out stupidly in Test is a learning ex­perience : TUTORIAL

11-across – Tower of Pisa, say, is of architectural interest : LISTEDBUILDING

13-across – Lecture can produce averse reaction : RELUCTANCE

14-across – One upper-class twit : UNIT

16-across – Amy’s cooked the vegetables : YAMS

18-across – Dispatches produce merriment on board : SLAUGHTERS

21-across – Film boxing champion? : LORDOFTHERINGS

23-across – Suffering from a lack of balance? : INTHERED

24-across – Come out East and join up : EMERGE

25-across – Insisted order must be a good order : TIDINESS

26-across – Enemy Zulu leader going round causing ferment : ENZYME

1-down – Players — or the pitch : CAST

2-down – Friendly drink? : CORDIAL

3-down – Drawer of Cupid’s bow? : LIPSTICK

5-down – Remedial needlework : ACUPUNCTURE

6-down – Stroll round to see the cave-dwellers : TROLLS

7-down – No one has time to set up the paper : EDITION

8-down – Agents get sealed orders : DELEGATES

12-down – Such correspondence is uncalled for : DEADLETTERS

13-down – Normality restored in moneymaking organ­isation : ROYALMINT

15-down – Yet he enjoys some standing at meetings : CHAIRMAN

17-down – Just working tired me : MERITED

19-down – For example, rising in the morning with enthusiasm : EAGERLY

20-down – New style navy : MODERN

22-down – Present the woman’s beginning to expect : HERE

1-across – Fuel reserves first found just beneath the surface : SUBSOIL

5-across – Penny all but broke can opener : PULLTAB

9-across – Members of group settle complaint : UPSET

10-across – Force vehicle off polar ice with clubs : POLICECAR

11-across – Back entrance to show site of church division : ROODSCREEN

12-across – English bank : SIDE

14-across – Quiet evening’s a big blow for singer in 8 1 down : NIGHTINGALE

18-across – Drag coolest produce in here? : COLDSTORAGE

21-across – 1 down of 2 said to be in front : FORE

22-across – Become natural? Lie on one side : UNILATERAL

25-across – Trainee working at country house travels a great distance : LONGRANGE

26-across – Suspect might be losing a game : RUMMY

27-across – Search for Pole cut short — frightened noise interrupts : SEEKOUT

28-across – One held socks with label inside : HOSTAGE

1-down – Adjust place where 2, say, sits on board : SQUARE

2-down – Clergyman twice seen at dance : BISHOP

3-down – Set bonuses distributed with insensitivity : OBTUSENESS

4-down – Undesirable person first to be taken in by wind-up : LEPER

5-down – Regularly spray leaders at break in gym : PALAESTRA

6-down – Officer returned to cocktail bar : LOCK

7-down – Cunning chess player takes castle after start of play : TACTICAL

8-down – Wally meets sweetheart beside a line in California : BERKELEY

13-down – Depression sure to develop after hip contracts : INDENTURES

15-down – Found overturned barrel to be a source of oil : GROUNDNUT

16-down – Small boy hit in disturbances : SCUFFLES

17-down – City gent raised little money going topless : FLORENCE

19-down – Offence committed in front of a theatre of 17 14 : CRIMEA

20-down – Weary man born where 8 was 2 : CLOYNE

23-down – Scrounger taps general first : LEECH

24-down – A refusal to hold red flower in 17 : ARNO

1-across – He became proverb­ially rich from various 5 across : CROESUS

5-across – Origins of Crusoe’s shipwreck : SOURCES

9-across – Artist returns two hours before noon : MANET

10-across – A call for military revolution : ABOUTTURN

11-across – Cleaners put off by public conveniences : DETERGENTS

12-across – Will him to succeed : HEIR

14-across – Tax I am able to declare in Rome : VATICANSTATE

18-across – Healthily, Ron gets involved in sexual activity : ROLLINTHEHAY

21-across – Prepare to shoot a bird : COCK

22-across – A gamekeeper might, if the bag isn’t big enough : GETTHESACK

25-across – Music said to get in the dough : PASTORALE

26-across – It returns in June, having got the tip-off it’s free : UNTIE

27-across – One at kindergarten showing very little spirit : TINYTOT

28-across – Beasts of burden going round by deep gorges : ABYSSES

1-down – Buffalo Bill touring Middle East for fun : COMEDY

2-down – Point to hold forth about and elaborate : ORNATE

3-down – Dreadful Australian orgy : SATURNALIA

4-down – Post the money for the pool’s entry? : STAKE

5-down – Upset over what’s broadcast : SHORTWAVE

6-down – Put out, nothing is fit for the job : UPTO

7-down – Reason and method for walking across water : CAUSEWAY

8-down – They guard the southern gates : SENTRIES

13-down – Property tax will keep the gamekeeper busy : ESTATEDUTY

15-down – Formerly, patients treated outside hospital : INTHEPAST

16-down – Crazy to take two banned substances : CRACKPOT

17-down – Makes a timely entrance? : CLOCKSIN

19-down – Does it fly on a wing and a prayer? : MANTIS

20-down – Balls hit high, right into the heavens : SKIERS

23-down – He’s in race with a foreign character : THETA

24-down – Two officers, one gun : COLT

1-across – Confrontation over a vehicle : CALASH

4-across – Plonk — new load got in is hot stuff : VINDALOO

9-across – Ox takes head off plant : LOWER

10-across – One can find a home in Oxford : LOSTCAUSE

11-across – Such food’s origin can be suspicious : INORGANIC

12-across – Faithful, say, in economy with the truth : LIEGE

13-across – They may constrain one’s liquid assets : PURSESTRINGS

17-across – Coin featured in Schubert’s Octet? : PIECEOFEIGHT

20-across – Rowan’s character: nothing comic : BEANO

21-across – Troops : ROOTCROPS

23-across – Old stars, such as Marx and Engels … : REDGIANTS

24-across – … Beth and more of the same : DITTO

25-across – Nellie, or other with fewer friends : LONELIER

26-across – Cryptic advice for a clever solver to extract : ORACLE

1-down – Muse on everything one has to manage without : CALLIOPE

2-down – Crawl out from penalty area? : LAWCOURT

3-down – Show of indifference to quiet floor covering : SHRUG

5-down – Our visits once turned on such as John the Baptist : INSECTIVOROUS

6-down – EU proceed tied up with traditional rules : DECALOGUE

7-down – Greenwood tree featured by Hardy? : LAUREL

8-down – Key player? : OPENER

10-down – Extremists responsible for one frantic lunge : LUNATICFRINGE

14-down – Article laid Tories almost in shreds : EDITORIAL

15-down – A song about tourist information centre initially uncertain : AGNOSTIC

16-down – Device for one sense to intrude on another? : OTOSCOPE

18-down – Native with one drink going away from the mouth : ABORAL

19-down – Keeper with Forest … : WARDEN

22-down – … introduced a redwood tree : CEDAR