Apologies for this being a day late. I had to go to a customer site yesterday and didn’t get back till 8pm, when I found that my ADSL connection was still down. I had been promised that it would be fixed by yesterday afternoon, but this morning it’s still down. Anyway, I solved this on my knee in the back of my boss’s car on the way back yesterday evening, so hopefully I can now read my own writing!
Across
1 JU(BIL(l),AN(n))T – be proud = jut
11 DE-GAS – ha ha, nice one.
12 AL((e)LITE,RAT)IVE – only worked out the wordplay when typing this up. And of course the whole clue is an example of alliteration, very clever.
16 PLUPERFECT – not sure about the wordplay. Homophone of “plus” (French for more) + PERFECT=well done, perhaps?
19 ECRU (cure*) – unbleached linen, or its colour.
24 ALE,PH=public house
26 D(REAR)Y – conclusion would normally mean just the last letter of a word, but here it’s the last two letters. Typical Araucarian “rule”-breaking.
Down
3,1,5,21 LIT,T(a)LE,JACK,HO,RN,ER(SATIN,ACORN)ER – the next line of the nursery rhyme is “eating his Christmas pie”.
4 NONBIOLOGICAL – shouldn’t this be (3-10)? Adoptive parents are non-biological, as is washing powder without the enzymes.
6 O,LD,HARRY – I don’t see how LD can be justified as an abbreviation for “would”. Can’t see an alternative explanation though.
7 NEG=gen rev,LI(GEN)CE
8 RES(PEC)TFUL – PEC = some peculiarities.
10 EXEMPLI GRATIA (taxi a mile per g)* – definition is just “say”.
13 GRANDSTAND – but why is it a fine place for a watchman?
14 P,RIVA,TEE,YE – Riva must be this place.
17 CRUNCHER – Jerry Cruncher is a character in Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.
20 ME,TRIC(k) – here 10 isn’t referring to another clue, but it took me a while to realise that!
23 HYMN – “him”, and peon=”paean”, so a double homophone here in the definition and the answer.
1A: I’m disappointed that Araucaria didn’t see the opportunity to use my name in the wordplay: e.g. JU(B,ILAN)T — or if he really wanted a girl’s name: JU(B,ILAN[a])T. 🙂
12A – Gosh, creaming off of cream = (e)lite is hard.
16A – got this but don’t like/get it.
As Linxit says what is giving you the “plu”??
25A – I got laterally but still don’t fully understand it. How does “end of game” = late??
25a: it’s LATE,RALLY which is an “improvement near the end of the game”, e.g. by scoring the tying goal in the 90th minute.