Solving time: pretty quickly
Not sure how long I took to solve this since I was multi-tasking at the time but I don’t recall any untoward hold-ups. In retrospect not much to comment on either which is too bad. The across clues were more interesting than the downs.
Across
| 1 | JA(LOP)Y – another word for a crate, banger, beater… |
| 4 | C(AES)AR – sea* in CAR. Sure, he was a Roman Emperor, but first he was the American comedian Sid CAESAR |
| 8 | IN,T(ROVER)T – TT often crops up as the Isle of Man TT motorbike race. Good abbrev to know. Do they still make ROVERs? (perhaps BMW does?). |
| 11 | THE SKY’S THE LIMIT – I interpret this as: “the TV’s” producing THE SKY’S (Murdoch’s channel) and “intolerably exasperating person” being THE LIMIT. |
| 18 | TACK,Y – those unsavoury Frenchmen (Y[ves] in this case). |
| 20 | NATIONAL SERVICE – (isn’t on, Alice, Vera)* — proper nouns are often anagram giveaways. |
| 25 | STAT(U)E – U for universal (“all”) in STATE of which Ohio is an example. Not my favourite surface reading though: ”Cast figure for all to see in Ohio, perhaps”. |
| 26 | FRUG,AL – don’t think I ever danced the FRUG nor I suspect did AL Capone. |
Down
| 1 | JOINT ACCOUNT – Nice cryptic def for where George and Weedon Grossmith no doubt deposited their earnings. |
| 3 | P.L.O.N.K. – last letters of “poP wilL gO dowN sinK”. |
| 5 | EX,C(ELLEN)T – a capital clue! |
| 6 | ATTEMPT – two meanings but really too close for comfort: ”Shot in a bid to kill someone.” “Shot” is an ATTEMPT and so is an ATTEMPT on someone’s life if your chosen profession happens to be assassin. |
| 10 | STOR(M)Y, PET,RE,L – one of the meanings of PET is a sulk. |
| 13 | T(IT,FORT)A,T – Our hard-working volunteers are TA. |
| 21 | A,DO,RE – Royal Engineers are known as sappers. |
| 22 | RIPER – hidden in “baR I PERceive”. |