Solved this during a flight, confident that Quixote’s clues would be accessible and fully understood.
Solving time: 25 mins
* = anagram
ACROSS
1 DI RECTOR’S HIP You expect a church reference from Quixote and here it is in the first clue.
10 UP (at university – crossword staple) Sound TART. Excellent surface.
12 D ((IAN) A) ROSS Living persons in the grid – lead singer of the Supremes (1960s Tamla Motown). Crossword convention allows lower case, as in this clue. Scot can mean Ian or maybe Mac.
14 The conductor Simon RATTLE.
15 Good stuff this, I guess I was not the only one looking for an anagram of “clue for a”. It’s MADE OVER (refashioned) i.e. edam (a cheese) “over” i.e. reversed.
23 PRES(ent)S Hospital Department = ENT (Eye Nose and Throat), a crossword staple.
24 TOR (Rot reversed) MENTOR
26 K (King) NO WALL
27 RED IS COVERED So you can’t hit it directly with the white cue ball (snooker).
DOWN
2 INST ALL Not sure if you see inst = this month so much these days in real life.
3 ETYMON (My note)*
4 THURSDAY’s child has far to go. (Nursery Rhyme)
11 AD O RED Excellent surface.
17 COST ‘ELLO Elvis Costello, singer starting out in the 1970s, not the King. Hello celebrity magazine.
19 LAS (saloon CAR) S. Never saw this word used outside crosswords. Are saloon cars still around? Chambers still has it anyway.
22 G RAM (constellation – horoscopes etc) ME
23 P (OK) ER Per = for a