Times 23,628 – Better late than never?

Despite a low start, I solved this one in less than 10 minutes, because the long entries weren’t particularly difficult. There are a few clues here where the definition is a bit loose, and there were a few clues where I put in an answer without fully understanding why at first.

ACROSS

1 P(R)AWN CRACKERS – nice surface

9 (<=AIL I)-C(ondition) – The ilium is one of the hipbones that make up the hip

10 F(O-REST)ALL – I presume that the definition for RESRT is “place” as in “rest against something”, but I’m not entirely satisfied with that

11 OBSERVABLE – (babe lovers)*

14 D(<=G-ACE)ON

16 AT L(E)AST – apart from smoothing the surface reading, why is “opens” in the clue?

19 FR.-E.C.-K(i)L(l)E(d) E.C. is the European Community

20 SUIT – double def. Originally, wanted to put in SPIN, referring to a bowler’s action in cricket, but couldn’t see how that was cryptic

21 ALL-ROUNDER – L-ROUND in (real)*

24 UNEXPOSED – (no sex pude)*

26 SITTING PRETTY – double definition. Although I can’t find a dictionary reference to “rich”, I suppose a rich person would be in an advantageous position in many cases.

DOWN

1 PRIMORDIAL SOUP – the mix of elements that are thought to have existed before life began. I love my food, but don’t think I’d be ordering that as a starter!

3 NIC(e)-(p)ARAGUA(y)-N

4 REF-RAIN – great clue

5 CO-ROLL-A – petals forming an internal floral envelope in a flower

7 S(PACE)WALK – men saparated from their lovers while at war or working on oil-rigs or in prison used to seal their letters with acronyms like SWALK (sealed with a kiss), ITALY (I trust and love you), HOLLAND (hope our love lasts and never dies) and BURMA (be undressed, ready, my angel).

8 OLD MOTHER RILEY – (telly hero or dim)* – despite the reference to “telly” in the anagram fodder, OLD MOTHER RILEY was a music hall drag artist, played to great success by Arthur Lucan from from the 1930s to 1950s. The character, an Irish washerwoman, also featured in a series of movies, and was the subject of a comic strip in the Radio Times.

13 BLUE MURDER – the collective noun for crows being a MURDER

15 COCK-1-NESS – COCK and “raise” are weak synonyms, but I suppose you could “COCK” an eyebrow. I think COCK UP would be a tighter synonym to “raise”

18 CO-LOSS-I – I like CO-LOSS for “joint deficit”. I is a symbol for electric current

19 FI(REDO)G – I struggled with the parsing for this, because I originally thought that “cutting tree” was FI(r), but of course a fig comes from a FIG tree.

22 DIVOT – not sure that this technically correct – the divot is not the mark left by a golf club, but the piece of grass which is sometimes lifted by a golf club.