Times 27217 – Race against the cloche?

I have said it before and no doubt I will say it again, but this was a very Mondayish type of puzzle, offering much to biffers and erudite personages alike. If a little too sciency for my taste, at least I had heard of the the supersonic Austrian and he was balanced by some nice ecclesiastical stuff. The award for oddest clue must go to 3 down, which seems to have been generated by machine. The ‘Obscure Word Being Clued by an Anagram’ brigade will have been sharpening their claws, ready to tear the setter’s vegetable patch to shreds, until…until they realised the letters could really go in no other order. Or could they? We shall surely find out.

I polished this off in less than 22 minutes, but I feel that some of the speed merchants may be hovering around the 5-minute mark.

ACROSS

1 Dodgy dealings exposed by astute medical centre (5,8)
SHARP PRACTICE – SHARP (astute) PRACTICE (as in ‘Peak’, where Sgt Lewis went after Morse’s moroseness finally got to him); this would have been my first biff if I started at 1a
9 Throw out slippery customer pinching 10p (5)
EXPEL – X P in EEL
10 Books turned out by peer knowing how sticky liquids flow? (9)
VISCOUSLY – VISCOU[nt] SLY (knowing)
11 Desert transport rejected by male supporter of Oxford Movement (10)
TRACTARIAN – reversal of RAT (desert) CART (transport) IAN (random male)
12 Jacob’s wife? Sounds like Cordelia’s father! (4)
LEAH – sounds like LEAR; you have to worry about Jacob. We are told that Leah (Laban’s elder daughter who was fobbed off on Jacob by her dad after he’d waited seven years for the comely younger daughter Rachel) had weak eyes. But if someone slips into your tent on your wedding night and you don’t realise it’s not the one you’ve been lusting after all those years, then I think you’re the one that needs the eye test, no?
14 Slaughter forest keeper ultimately associated with big cat (7)
TROUNCE – [fores]T [keep[e]R OUNCE; even if David Attenborough wouldn’t recognise an ‘ounce’ if it crept into his tent at night and said it wanted to marry him, there isn’t a cruciverbalist worth his or her salt who isn’t onto one of these things quicker than a Eurocrat can say ‘That’ll be 20 billion euros, merci/danke’.
16 Rebel leader locked up by some of the French for ages! (7)
DECADES – CADE (arguably the most famous crossword rebel) in DES (French for ‘some’)
17 Double-breasted jackets originally exhibited in adverts (7)
REEFERS – E[xhibited] in REFERS
19 Proposition boy soldiers misunderstood at first (7)
THEOREM – THEO (our second random male) RE (soldiers) M[isunderstood]
20 Place and time to strike on green (4)
PUTT – PUT T
21 Member involved in, say, Ulster disturbance a fellow-countryman (10)
COMPATRIOT – MP in COAT (Ulster is a type of coat) RIOT
24 Further issue mostly raised when lacking a hire contract (9)
RERELEASE – REARE[d] is mostly raised, subtract the A to give RERE, add LEASE (hire contract); slightly weird clue, but most will biff it, anyway
25 Dismal swimmer in river (5)
BLEAK – double definition; no, I’ve never heard of a bleak either [on edit: last Tuesday, Jack wrote against the clue for BLEAK HOUSE: ‘BLEAK (fish – a type of carp ), HOUSE (harbour – provide accommodation). An unbiffable clue’. Um, sorry, you were wrong, J!]
26 Battered by elements, survive at end of hike in mountain (7-6)
WEATHER-BEATEN – WEATHER (survive) AT [hik]E in BEN (mountain)

DOWN

1 Magazine proprietors finally left Rugby, say? (9,5)
SPECTATOR SPORT – SPECTATOR (magazine) [proprietor]S PORT (left)
2 For Greeks, a sacred river first of all (5)
ALPHA – ALPH (Coleridge’s sacred river, which ran through caverns measureless to man) A[ll]
3 Plant protector only Len put out (10)
POLYTUNNEL – anagram* of ONLY LEN PUT; a clochey thing made of polythene
4 Back minister introducing minority language (7)
REVERSE – REV ERSE
5 Celebrity dips into dictionary — it bears fruit (7)
COSTARD – STAR in COD (Concise Oxford Dictionary)
6 Smooth Federalist leaders symbolise it (4)
IRON – Iron has the chemical symbol FE, which are the first letters of FE[deralist]
7 London resident and European, equally soft-hearted (4,5)
EAST ENDER – a European who was not merely after the UK’s money but had more valorous feelings might (if he or she existed) be an E AS TENDER as, well, IAN and THEO for starters
8 Similarly, they beat monks, somehow touring east (2,3,4,5)
BY THE SAME TOKEN – E in THEY BEAT MONKS*
13 Current edible fungus served on board — it’s OK (10)
ACCEPTABLE – AS CEP TABLE (board)
15 Defeat the endless argument supporting deliveries (9)
OVERTHROW – TH[e] ROW on OVER (six balls in cricket)
18 Way Austrian physicist keeps old bear (7)
STOMACH – O in ST [Ernst] MACH
19 Principal girl’s initial attention engaged by speedy drivers? (3,4)
TOP GEAR – TOP (principal) G[irl’s] EAR; I’d have thought ‘engaged by any driver who didn’t want to blow his or her engine’ might be more apposite, but, then again, it doesn’t have quite the same ring to it
22 One clear about parking being awkward (5)
INEPT – I P in NET (clear)
23 Russian woman missing source of river (4)
OLGA – v[OLGA] gives our random devushka