A relatively gentle stroll today but a very pleasant one due to the excellent surface of the clues. I had to smile at some of the clues, for example 14a, 25a and 11d though I did think that 8d might have been better without ‘primarily’.
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Across
1 ANACONDA  homophone of ‘anna’ (girl) ‘conned’ (took in) A
5 SWEARS  S (lead in spectator) WEARS (sports)
9 ESTIMATE  *(TEATIMES)
10 LESSEE  LESS (smaller amount) EE (mid-week)
12 STEER  dd
13 EDINBURGH  B (born) in *(HIRED GUN)
14 DREAMY  dd
16 SIDECAR  [o]S[r]I[c] (Osric ignoring the odds) RACED (hurried) reversed
18 OPPOSED  O (old) P (party leader) POSED (sat for artist)
20 CANOPY  CA (California) OP (work) in NY (New York)
22 BUFFALOES  BUFF (polish) ALOES (plants)
23 BRICK  dd
24 ATHENS  A (Albanian capital) THEN (followed by) S (Serbian capital)
25 MINISTRY  MINIS (short skirts) TRY (test)
26 SATIRE  R (end of summer) in SATIE (composer)
27 PREPARED  dd

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*=anag, []=dropped, <=reversed, hom=homophone, cd=cryptic definition, dd=double definition.

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As usual, good fun from Paul, with a couple of typically cheeky clues, and not too difficult. One or two minor quibbles, but nothing to complain too much about: in fact there are probably fewer liberties taken than average. I’m not sure about my parsing of 9/24 – perhaps others could put me right.

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I found this a little harder than usual, solving time 27 mins.

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Monday Prize Crossword on 9 February 2009
dd = double definition
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
*(fodder) = anagram

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Prize puzzle from the Weekend FT of February 7
A typically delicious Cincinnus this time with a few fine clues (20A, 26A, 1D).

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