Times 25,731

Stopped the clock at 11:15 on what I thought was a very pleasant but not too demanding puzzle (with the caveat that it’s obviously impossible to tell in advance if everyone else will think the same, as proved by last Tuesday’s*). The major stumbling block might be the classical references, though there’s also a fair bit of natural history, not to mention a mathematician, but no poets, which will please my Tuesday co-tenant. I’d say this felt a little old-fashioned, but not in an overly dusty way.

*At time of writing, my only comparison on the leaderboard is with Jason, and as I’m just under twice his time, I’m pretty much where I’d expect to be by that measure. I shall wait for people to confirm if this puzzle is, in fact, dreadfully hard / insultingly easy [delete as appropriate].

Across
1	CONCLAVE – CONservative, Liberal in CAVE. Most famously when cardinals gather to elect a Pope.
9	REACTIVE – foR thE ACTIVE (the grammatical voice, as opposed to the passive).
10	SCUM – C in SUM. Scum, sub-human scum as Alan Partridge once said.
11	BILLINGSGATE – playful suggestion based on the fact that it’s now automatic for journalists to apply the suffix “-gate” to any scandal at all (and yet when a cabinet minister gets into a row with Downing Street police over using the correct exit, it’s Plebgate rather than Gategate, which I think is missing a trick). Anyway, an imaginary scandal relating to overcharging could be Billings-gate, as in the name of London’s traditional wholesale fish market.
13	PIGNUT – GNU in PIT; I didn’t know this, but was convinced enough by the obvious wordplay to put it in even before any checkers appeared. Anyway, it’s the underground tuber of a herb, which has many common names; this one indicates its popularity with foraging pigs, presumably when they can’t get truffles.
14	EMPLOYER – PLOY(subterfuge) in REME(rev.)
15	UNSTUCK – Slave in UN(a, if you’re French), TUCK (Robin Hood’s traditionally well-upholstered companion).
16	CHEETAH =”CHEATER”, as in the answer to the question why you shouldn’t play cards when you’re on safari.
20	PALOMINO – PAL O’ MINe, Owned. Wikipedia assures me that both Trigger and Mr. Ed were palominos.
22	CURATE – RAT in CUE.
23	ARISTOCRATIC – (AIR)*, Time in SOCRATIC.
25	ISIS – gIgS mIsS. The Thames, but only the bit which flows through Oxford, hence “part”.
26	EYEGLASS – Good in [Energy, YE(old form of “the”), LASS].
27	HABANERA – A BAN in HER Area. Another which went in from wordplay, because even though I’d never heard of it before, it certainly sounded very much like a dance (i.e. “steps taken”). And I did know the Habanero chilli, so it wasn’t inconceivable that Havana might give its name to more than one thing.
Down
2	ORCADIAN – Old ARCADIAN, the Arcadians being the proverbially happy and simple countryfolk of a bygone utopia. Though if you happen to know a) where Kirkwall is and b) what residents of Orkney are properly called, this answer will have gone in without needing to consider them.
3	COMBINATIONS – COMB(“dress”), NATION in IS. Combinations would be the ancestor of the onesie, I suppose…
4	ANALYTIC – ANA(“accounts”), Left, (CITY)rev.
5	ERMINED – robE in [E.R. MIND].
6	HANG-UP – double def.
7	VISA – hidden in kieV IS An; possibly a comment on the slightly worrying situation in that part of the world.
8	RESEARCH – REES(the requisite Welshman) with half his letters reversed, ARCH(“chief”).
12	GEOMETRICIAN – (CAIROMEETING)*. Rene Descartes was influential in maths as well as philosophy, and quite literally a Renaissance Man.
15	UNPLACED – (PUNt)*, LACED(“beaten”).
17	HECATOMB – HECATE, the classical enchantress, with her final letter changed from E to O, then M.B. for the doctor. A hecatomb was a sacrifice of 100 oxen, so not the sort of thing to happen every day.
18	ANTERIOR – the port of RIO in [BANTER without the Bishop].
19	BOORISH – Old, O.R.(Other Ranks), in BISH. Another slightly old-fashioned one: I think it was Jennings who was regularly found committing some sort of fearful bish, though it may have been Nigel Molesworth.
21	ISOBAR – 1’S 0 BAR, as it might be written.
24	ILEX – Investigate, LEX (“law” in Latin). I think this is the clue where people are most likely to come to grief if they don’t have either the classical/legal knowledge to get the LEX part, or the botanical knowledge of what the holly family is called.