No time for this very nice example of the art of crossword setting, as I bombed out on one of the downs, where I did my best with all the crossing letters, but still came up short.
No complaints. Just beaten by a better team, like…
| Across | |
| 1 | English stigma made French scoff (8) |
| ESCARGOT – E SCAR GOT | |
| 6 | Kindly feeding extremely suspicious bees etc (6) |
| SWARMS – WARM in S[uspiciou]S | |
| 9 | Eco-friendly vehicle part contains uranium, really oddly (6,7) |
| CARBON NEUTRAL – U in CAR BONNET + R[e]A[l]L[y] | |
| 10 | Article about the setter’s revolutionary nom de guerre (6) |
| ANONYM – AN ON MY reversed; another word for pseudonym – an anonymous person | |
| 11 | Service is no good if earlier however (8) |
| EVENSONG – N G preceded by (‘if earlier’) EVEN SO (however) | |
| 13 | Weaselly type‘s rowdy intemperance leaving church (4,6) |
| PINE MARTEN – anagram* of INTEMPERAN[ce] | |
| 15 | Left sweethearts to shed clothes (4) |
| OVER – [l]OVER[s] | |
| 16 | Man perhaps read aloud passage (4) |
| ISLE – sounds like ‘aisle’ | |
| 18 | Old story about India at back of Republican magazine (10) |
| REPOSITORY – I (India) in O STORY after (at back of) REP; a repository is somewhere you store things safely, in this case weapons, etc. | |
| 21 | Tough old bird’s lost after terrible tale (8) |
| LEATHERN – a bit of Yoda speak here: HER[o]N (the bird HERON loses its O [old]) after TALE* | |
| 22 | Former magistrate thought about limits of lenience (6) |
| AEDILE – IDEA reversed L[enienc]E; a Roman magistrate | |
| 23 | A billion goats slaughtered for world economic development (13) |
| GLOBALISATION – A BILLION GOATS* | |
| 25 | Singular character departs on a trip (6) |
| STONED – S TONE D | |
| 26 | Most stylish and vacuous supermodel, I’m afraid, is in France (8) |
| SLEEKEST – S[upermode]L EEK (I’m afraid!) EST (‘is’ in French) | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Flash one’s lower parts (7) |
| SECONDI – SECOND I; typically, left hand parts in a piano duet | |
| 3 | Finally organising diverse people into rank and order (11) |
| ARRANGEMENT – final letters of [organisin]G [diverse]E in ARRANT (rank, as in arrant nonsense) men (people) | |
| 4 | Low spirits start to get lower? (5) |
| GLOOM – G[et] LOOM (lower, rhyming with ‘cower’) | |
| 5 | Backer briefly entering explosive function (7) |
| TANGENT – ANGE[l] (backer in the theatre, darlings) in TNT | |
| 6 | Fancy Easter sun and sweet wine (9) |
| SAUTERNES – EASTER SUN* | |
| 7 | Sky broadcast quality song (3) |
| AIR – nice quadruple definition | |
| 8 | Mixture of male impetuosity and half-cut rage (7) |
| MELANGE – |
|
| 12 | Queasy hosts digested last of blood pudding (7,4) |
| SPOTTED DICK – POTTED (digested, as in shortened or abridged – think of Reader’s Digest) [bloo]D in (hosts) SICK (queasy) | |
| 14 | Law firm exec regularly duped about new licence (1,4,4) |
| A FREE HAND – [l]A[w]F[i]R[m]E[x]E[c] N (new) in HAD (duped) | |
| 17 | Cunning insult overheard (7) |
| SLEIGHT – sounds like ‘slight’ | |
| 19 | Garments putting pressure on navels (7) |
| PINNIES – P (pressure) on INNIES (those type of navels!); this one did for me | |
| 20 | Devoid of ego, listener somehow gives way (7) |
| RELENTS – L[i]STENER* (no ego, i.e. I) | |
| 22 | Silver pressing on primate’s Christian love (5) |
| AGAPE – AG (silver) APE | |
| 24 | Confess some shallOW Notions (3) |
| OWN – hidden | |
4D. How does ‘loom’ mean ‘lower’?
Had to look up AEDILE to make sure it was a thing, and had forgotten that a PINE MARTEN was another word for weasel . Oh and as a nicely-brought-up lady of the sixties vintage NHO ‘outies’ and ‘innies’. So apart from these problems I had a reasonable run with ANONYM my FOI, CODs to STONED, CARBON NEUTRAL and SLEEKEST. Elegant crossword.