Very tough today, and some excellent misdirection by Dac. Solving time, 39 mins. A little rushed today- one not fully understood yet, but verified using ‘Reveal’ that I got it right.
* = anagram
ACROSS
1 SUM O all round
3 THUMB’S CREW
9 AFRO (for a)*
10 BOOK GROUPS
12 PAST ORALS
13 RILKE R (like)*
14 STUD MUFFINS (F must find us)* & lit
18 NIGHT-IN G ALE
21 (c) O (DO) UR (t)
22 RE CALLING
24 MAGNUM OPUS Virgil wrote in Latin
25 PIC A (old film classification, I think)
26 ST AND ST ILL
27 PELE Hidden
DOWN
1 SHAR PE(i) ST
2 MO (RE) SQUE
4 HOO-HA Not sure of the wordplay
5 MAKE SHIFT
6 SUR (P RISING) LY Very clever
7 (t) ROUBLE
8 WA (SHE) D
11 COMMON GROUND
16 MAXIM (r)ISE(r)
17 BELGRADE “belle”
18 COMMIS erates
20 BORGIA I in (Garbo)*
23 C HURL
4D HOO(c)H A – hooch as in liquor.
24A It’s a shame Dac didn’t give one of his colleagues a name-check. It could so easily have been “Virgilius’s great work”.
Thanks for explaining 1A and 22A.
Finished it apart from the words I’d never heard of. Never come across a commis chef (but then again my cooking doesn’t get much beyond spaghetti bolognaise) or a studmuffin (even knowing it was an anagram didn’t help). I wasn’t particularly keen on the way specific people were used in the clues without putting a “say” or “e.g.”: to me, if you say Gordon Ramsay’s assistant, it must be the name of someone who helps him rather than a general word for a chef.
Tricky, I thought, but not nearly so tough as some I’ve seen in the Indy. Nobody commented on 9ac, which I thought was brilliant. I could’t understand all that stuff about the 1950s in 25ac. “… old film aimed at adults”?
Ref 25A: I believe the film classifications in the 50s and 60s were U (Universal) which is still in use, A (Adult) and X (covering sex and horror). I think A equates roughly to today’s category 12 or 15, and X to 18 (though I suspect the age limit for X films was originally 16). Many old films original classified X are now reclassified 15.
I couldn’t see past ‘hair raiser’ for 10a.