Times Saturday 26748 – June 10, 2017. And the polls are in!

This puzzle had a slightly different feel to it. The surfaces of the clues all read nicely, and some of the definitions had a nice twist to them, with a hint of domesticity and a few election references. Congratulations to the setter.

It took me my usual leisurely time, particularly since I am perhaps still a bit travel-weary. The left hand side of the puzzle went in fairly smoothly, but the right was a struggle. The answer to 10ac and the parsing of 19dn eluded me in particular.

Looking at the leaderboard I see that as I prepare to post, the 100^th best time was over 24 minutes, definitely on the slow side for a Saturday. The comments on the club site also suggested it was on the hard side.

Clues are in blue, with definitions underlined. Anagram indicators are bolded and italicised. The answer is IN BOLD, followed by the wordplay. (ABC*) means ‘anagram of ABC’, {deletions are in curly brackets}.

Across
1. Frail vocalist surprisingly displaying great force abroad (8,5)
VICTORIA FALLS: (FRAIL VOCALIST*). I recently came across “force” as meaning waterfall in an old puzzle from October 2011, which I took on my trip to avoid withdrawal symptoms!
9. Caught, having left company, making illegal copy (5)
CLONE: C=caught, LONE=having left company. I’m not convinced a clone has to be illegal, but it certainly might be.
10. Hint of envy maybe — director speaking out (9)
SCINTILLA: when “speaking out”, SCIN sounds like “sin” (envy, for example, being one of the seven deadly sins), and TILLA sounds like “tiller”=director, of a boat perhaps.
11. Tipped team in light blue (6-4)
UPSIDE DOWN: SIDE=team in UP=light DOWN=blue. I really expected Oxford to appear somewhere, light blue being its sporting colour, but no!
12. Stick to clean joke: time for second (1-3)
Q-TIP: QUIP=joke; change the second letter to T=time.
14. No beggar maybe could be so bothered with chore (7)
CHOOSER: (SO CHORE*). Since beggars can’t be choosers according to the proverb, I’m not even sure we need the “maybe”.
16. Historically, one preferred the house white (7)
YORKIST: cryptic definition, since the House of York had a white rose as its emblem.
17. Stretch and pull to pieces in peripheral half of exercise (7)
EXPANSE: EX{erci}SE (peripheral four letters) around PAN=”pull to pieces”.
19. Cutting article from writer considered mediocre and dated (7)
HACKSAW: HACK=”writer considered mediocre”, SAW=”dated” in the romantic sense.
20. High time, perhaps, to advance the last taboo (2-2)
NO-NO: NOON, with the last letter moved forward one place. High Noon, with Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly, 1952: http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/24083/High-Noon/
21. 25 million came, extraordinarily, equal in size (10)
COMMEASURE: (M CAME ROUSE*), where ROUSE is 25 across, and M=million. Strangely, I biffed this before I solved 25, so I could use the spare letters to do 25 as an anagram. Particularly strange, since I didn’t know the word, but once I had the helpful “U”, it looked like some sort of measure was called for!
24. Something life-enhancing one found in character of Greek sea god (9)
NUTRITION: NU=your usual character from the Greek alphabet, TRITON=your sea god, also Greek as it happens. Insert “I”=one, and away you go. Bon appetit.
25. Scraps you might pick up are exciting (5)
ROUSE: sounds like “ROWS” in the sense of an argument, not in the sense of rank and file.
26. Lack of pretence initially bearing weight in aspect of policy (2-6,5)
NO-CLAIMS BONUS: NO CLAIMS=lack of pretence, as in “I have no claims to be a quick crossword solver”. B=initially “bearing”. ONUS=weight (of responsibility). Took me a while to see this, perhaps because in these parts it’s called a No Claim Bonus.

Down
1. Getting some sucker to tidy up? (6,8)
VACUUM CLEANER: Cryptic definition.
2. Come over and put out a sign (5)
CROSS: triple definition. Cross the road, cross an enemy, or put a cross on the ballot paper.
3. Party has ended with Carol outside bingeing (10)
OVERDOSING: OVER=ended, DO=party, SING=carol.
4. Jailed ultimately for this sort of dealing? (7)
INSIDER: INSIDE=jailed, R={fo}R. Definition is a semi-&lit.
5. Something to drive down fees — at the outset state method (7)
FAIRWAY: F{ees} AIR=state WAY=method. Step up to the tee and take out your No. 2 wood, and 200m down the fairway you drive. No?
6. Instrument has loudly suppressed another one (4)
LUTE: or {F}LUTE.
7. Their function is to hold rat by the legs (5,4)
SPLIT PINS: SPLIT=”rat”, as to inform to police. PINS=legs. Split pins are things one doesn’t much see these days. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_pin
8. Slates people in floods used for household appliances (6,8)
CARPET SWEEPERS: CARPETS=slates, WEEPERS=people in floods of tears.
13. Break into building’s empty attic, fracturing funny bone (5,1,4)
CRACK A CRIB: CRACK=funny, RIB=bone, all containing (“fractured by”) A{tti}C. Not an expression I knew. British slang, I’m guessing.
15. Faulty ring on top layer (9)
ORPINGTON: (RING ON TOP*). A layer of eggs aka “hen”.
18. Former accountant keeping books: one unusual collection (7)
EXOTICA: EX=former, CA=accountant, “keeping” OT=books I=one.
19. In short, performing upset my namesake (7)
HOMONYM: HOM{E}=”in”, ON=”performing”, YM=”my” upset.
22. After polling, put ballot box facing the other way (1-4)
U-TURN: {p}UT (“after polling” = with its top cut off!) + URN=ballot box. DNK that meaning of “urn”, either, but once I got the leading “U” it was easy to biff the answer!
23. An element of the unknown included (4)
ZINC: Z=one of the usual unknowns, INC=included.