Times 25659 – Nice ‘n’ Easy Does it

Across

1 FELLOW-TRAVELLER – term originally used by Trotsky to describe a clandestine supporter of the revolutionary cause. An early RLS book was called ‘Travels with a Donkey in Cévennes’.
9 EXONERATE – ‘clear’; the wordplay is EX + ON + E (last letter of ‘false’) + RATE (‘charge’).
10 GOODS – ‘commodities’; O (first letter of ‘ordered’) in GODS (‘gallery’).
11 SLYEST – not actually that cunning: S+L(YES)T.
12 STANDARD – I rather liked this: a song by Cole Porter or the Gershwins, say; I always felt for the poor sod who had to carry a flag rather than a rifle into battle.
13 WAITER – the allusive reference is to the two fellows who were waiting for Godot.
15 PRESTIGE – anagram* of last letter of [sette]E + GP TRIES.
18 RIPARIAN – ‘living by the river’; the Scotchman is almost always Ian, since not many words have Iain in them; it seems that some people, Americans, amongst them, pronounce the first two syllables of ‘riparian’ as ‘repair’, which accounts for the ‘go, say’ part of the clue, as in ‘I will repair to the bar’. Me, I don’t think I’ve ever said the word…
19 BODEGA – reversal of AGE + DOB. In Crosswordland, plonk is seldom sold from an off-license or ASDA.
21 BROWBEAT – ‘bully’; ROW (‘set-to’) in B [and] B (‘overnight accommodation’) + TEA*. My last in.
23 ESTATE ‘condition in the past’ (ie an archaic usage, think ‘the holy estate of matrimony’); our old friend ‘French art’ = [you] are = es makes an appearance alongside our old friend the TATE gallery.
26 UPPER – ‘superior’; I have just learnt that ‘upping’ is the coralling of swans on the Thames for ID purposes; cygnets are matched with their mum and dad and their beaks nicked with a sharp knife wielded by the ‘upper’.
27 OUTRIGGER – O(U)TRIGGER.
28 DOUBLE-BARRELLED – a somewhat convoluted clue referencing a character in Wodehouse I’d never heard of; the literal is ‘like Fink-Nottle’, with the wordplay breaking down as 7 = lookalike = DOUBLE + BARRELLED (the sort of thing a Wodehouse character might have done, I suppose, in their Bentley). Being of the double-barrelled persuasion myself, I was recently sent a list of cuttings from a Canadian paper’s wedding announcement page; my favourite (some are unsuitable for a family blog like this) celebrated the union of AIKIN-JOHNSON.

Down

1 FRETSAW – FRETS (think one of McT’s instruments) + A[djusted] + W[ith].
2 LOOPY – O in PLOY*.
3 OVERSTEER – the last letter of delinquenT in OVERSEER.
4 TRAP – a horse-drawn conveyance I have heard of…
5 APERTURE – APE + RR (‘Right Reverend’) around TU (‘Trades Unions’) + E (‘note’).
6 ELGIN – EL + GIN; I was going to say you have to have all your marbles to get this one, but on reflection I don’t think I will.
7 LOOKALIKE – a charade of LOOK + AL (Capone) + IKE (Mr President).
8 RESIDUE – RE (Royal Engineers) + SID(U)E. 3-0 away to Villa is a step in the right direction.
14 IMPROMPTU – ‘off the cuff’; ‘I’m prompt!’ + another U. Worth a groan or three.
16 SCOTS PINE – anagram of T[hriving] + IN COPSES.
17 CATACOMB – CAT (clued by ‘queen’, as so often recently) + A[nne] + COMB.
18 REBOUND – double definition, one (doubly) figurative.
20 AVERRED – ‘maintained’; A + REV reversed + RED.
22 BERYL – RY in BEL, which is ten decibels, apparently. If you’re going to name a unit after a bloke, surely you don’t cut him off in his prime. Hertz was lucky, but the same thing happened to Volta. Oh well, win some, lose some.
24 ANGEL – N[ew] in AGE + L for the kindly theatrical philanthropist who now exists only in Crosswordland.
25 STAR – I’m not sure how ‘rats’ equates to nonsense, but I am sure that elucidation is not far away. Thanks to Nonnie in the comment on p. 2 for citing the OED, which has ‘rats’ as an exclamation meaning nonsense.