Solving time: 22 mins. Pleasing fare, as always.
* = anagram
ACROSS
7 HE PA(R)IN Friendly wordplay for a word unfamiliar to me (but it’s in the Concise OED). A compound occurring in the liver and also used in medical treatments.
10 CHE ER I O Che Guevara from the 1960s – if there were royalties payable when your name was used in a crossword, his estate would be flush now. But we do need those staples to get us on our way.
11 GEORGES POMPIDOU MP in (does groupie go)* President of France between De Gaulle and Giscard d’Estaing. Died in office in 1974.
12 EL (E) (V) ATION e =drug v = very (short). Excellent surface.
26 INTEGER Integers are the whole numbers so the positive ones are 1, 2, 3, …
27 TRENT ON Capital of New Jersey
DOWN
1 C HI (GO) E
2 DR (A) G RACE Dr WG Grace
4 RE (PP) ED Acted as a rep.
5 B (R) AD Very intricate wordplay – good. R = beginning to Rust. For “external feature” means put bad around it.
6 DOCUMENT C = entrance to college in (mounted)*
8 PROC(ED)URE
9 NISEI Hidden reversal
14 OVER(SIGH)T
15 HE ADSHIP (a PhD is)*
16 RE D (ST) ART The River Dart
18 FO(O)L LOWER
20 T ROUGH “The” Northern (or Yorkshire as here) is T – a device more frequently seen in advanced puzzles.
22 SHE ET The book and the film best known to solvers?
25 I(O)TA Greek letter. ITA = Initial Teaching Alphabet.