Across
1 NESTLE – two definitions – the accent mark on the final e in the first definition is ignored
8 PATRIOT – A trip*, to* – charade with two anagrams
11 LAWN TENNIS – lawn, in nest* – in ‘snake’ (to move sinuously) we have a nice anagram indicator. The not-so-obvious def. and ‘snake’ as noun in surface reading delayed the answer
12 FORM – two definitions – when I was in school I was in ‘form’ but present-day schoolboys in India are in ‘class’
20 STIR – s(t)ir – ‘finally’ goes with ‘Opponent’, not ‘caught’
23 KILOTON – kil(oto*)n – actually it’s a measure of explosive force
24 PIE-EYED – pi, E, eyed
Down
1 NGANA – from visitiNG AN Abattoir – a hidden clue that is really hidden; Chambers has definition in its variant ‘nagana’
2 STRINGY – try sing* – ‘high’ does double duty as anag. ind. and as part of def.
5 X-RAYS – no fractures here!
6 CHAFFED – cha(f)fed; when we embrace someone we had better take care!
10 INTORSION – in [tors(i)o]n – double container-contained
15 ADDICTION – addiction – ‘ground’ is noun in surface reading but verb as anag. ind.; surface reading is not very elegant, though
17 TURMOIL – t(urm*)oil
9A Caraway – apparantly cara + way, but where’s the ‘tropical tree almost’? Surely not carob.
26A Unison, but why, anagram of unions? But that doesn’t appear directly in the clue.
22D Grein, not a word; what has this to do with ‘long’?
Re 22dn
Grein (green) is a Scottish word that means ‘long, yearn’.
Re 9ac
The tropical tree in question is carap. So ‘tropical tree almost’ gives the component ‘cara’.
Thanks. I see that in the OED carap is not a tree, but an oil from the carapa tree, and that grein is found in none of my dictionaries. I can’t say that I’m impressed!