Times 25934 – Everything’s bottoms, isn’t it?

ACROSS

1. SAVILE ROW – VILE + ROW behind our old friend SA = sex appeal = it.
6. CADGE – the first of two consecutive clues using a similar containicating device; D (first letter of Detention) in CAGE (‘locked up’).
9. NINNY – the second…INN (‘tavern’) in NY (‘Manhattan’ – at least, part of NYC, as indicated by the question mark).
10. VOICELESS – O in VICELESS.
11. CASTOR AND POLLUX – ‘matching’ cos they are twins (albeit with different fathers); ‘shiners’ coz they are stars. According to some accounts, Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra were their twin sisters. Dynasty had nothing on this lot.
13. GREEN TEA – GREEN + “TEE”.
14. STRATI – double definition; strati may refer to the uniform greyish clouds that cover the entire sky (common in the UK then); the only two artistic Strati I could find are Robert and Saimir, both very much alive and kicking, so something may have slipped through the editorial net here. Or not…as Jack points out, it’s an anagram of ARTIST. I reckon I could be alone with this particular howler, but somehow, sadly, one is never as unique as one likes to think oneself to be.
16. THICKO – HICK in TO.
18. MAN+DRILL.
21. CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR – an anagram* of LOCOS RACING around TUBE reversed.
23. ANCESTRAL – LANCASTER*; literal ‘past’.
25. IRATE – ‘spitting feathers’; ‘wipes mouth’ indicates you remove the first letter of PIRATE.
26. HOT UP – ‘become more exciting’; don’t quite get the logic of the rest of the clue, but perhaps there isn’t any. Just an image…Or not, once more – the Cuban goes to McT for his explanation: “as the sun is” (HOT), “in the sky” (UP).
27. SPARE TYRE – unless you have one of those vehicles with a rhino and a spade on the back door, in which case it’s keeping them company.

DOWN

1. SONIC – reverse hidden.
2. VENUS DE MILO – I’d like to see this one clued via the Nestlé drink I used to flog.
3. LAY DOWN – just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water after the attack of corny word-plays…
4. RE[VEAL]ED – I did toy with ‘remeated’, but not for long.
5. WEIRDO – O (‘love’) + DREW (‘tied’) reversed (‘up’) with I (‘one’) inserted (‘bound’).
6. CHEROOT – CHE (our ‘red’ du [tou]jour[s]) + ROOT for the cigar that does not taper.
7. DIE – double definition; my hamsters use to do this faithfully, unless they got stuck behind the wheel, or found their way onto the window ledge.
8. ESSEX GIRL – the wordplay – in case you are interested – is X on GI inside LESSER*. An ‘Essex Girl’ stands for the type of young woman (perhaps on reflection ‘young at heart’ is a better way of putting it) who in the popular and no doubt misconceived imagination likes nothing better than to have sex and to talk about having sex in an irritating Estuarine twang and a blonde rinse.
12. LEADING LADY – this time it’s LEA + DINGY around LAD.
13. GATECRASH – CRATE* in GASH.
15. MAGNOLIA – ‘pale colour’; reversal of I + LONG (‘stretched’) + AM (‘in the morning’) then add A . My last in.
17. KNEES-UP – SEE (‘understand’) inside (‘claimed by’) PUNK (‘anarchist’) reversed.
19. DECLINE – DEC[ember] + LINE (‘what’s yours?’).
20. HUBRIS – HUB + RIS[k]; ‘focus’ as in ‘the kitchen is the hub of any good party’. Nexus and hub have been hijacked by consultants and their dreadful management-speak in Hong Kong, at any rate.
22. RE+EVE – RE (‘on subject of’) + EVE (‘first female’); besides its nominal senses of magistrate, steward or Superman, reeve can also mean to ‘thread (a rope or rod) through a ring or other aperture’ if you’re a jolly tar.
24. CUT – double definition.