This was my slowest Quixote solve of 2007 – contains some good stuff as set out below.
Solving time: 34 mins
* = anagram
ACROSS
1 B(AIL)IFF Jointly with 5 down, my favourite clue “Agent spelling trouble when there’s knock outside?”, Ail being trouble and biff knock
5 PRI(d)E ST d = departs St = saint (“very holy”)
9 CO(a)XED
12 BAR CEL(O)NA O in (clean)* “Old city” was nicely misleading with Ur, Troy coming to mind before light dawned.
13 ELS IN OR E Crossword staples: in = home: gold = or The setting for Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.
15 PEP SIN
17 TO BAG O In the West Indies (WI)
22 EXPAT(r)IATE
23 KE BA B Switch flanks in BAKE
24 Heinrich HEINE and Thomas Mann (German writers) The publisher Heinemann
26 PEARLY “Purley”
27 AM ENDED PM begins when AM ends (at noon)
DOWN
3 IRONS Golf clubs and evening i.e. ironing clothes
4 Gustave FLAUBERT “Flow” “Bare” Very good. Author of Madame Bovary.
5 PIE(d-a-te)RRE Another cracker: “Frenchman throwing girl out of flat?” All the better because of the French context of the longer word. girlfriend = date. These subtractive clues are usually harder, because the subtractive bit is invisible in the grid. Here for example you have at most three letters of the ten.
7 SEX TONS Hmmm…
11 NIGHTWEAR Cryptic definition.
18 B (A PT IS) E Strange definition (to fit in with the wordplay, I guess) “to sign up in a non-dry fashion”
20 HUB BAR D Old Mother Hubbard of the nursery rhyme.