Please excuse the drive-by blog, which I’ll aim to flesh out in a couple of hours. (I can sympathise with the clue at 8D today.) Not much to explain, although I suspect that some of the loose wordplay structures might peeve some.
Across
1 KOPECK – K.O. +peck
4 MARJORAM – mar+Jo+RAM (random access memory).
9 DESIRE – ‘Offside’ = (side)*
10 CHUBBIER
11 EXILED
12 CEMETERY – I wasn’t overly impressed with the use of ‘latecomers’ in a punning sense.
13 OUR – Homophone of “hour”
14 ECHOES – “European Community” = EC seems a little dated these days.
17 DOSSIER – i in dosser
21 DEBATE – (be)rev in date.
25 IVY
26 MEMBRANE – (E+MB+ran) in ME
27 FINIAL
28 ABNORMAL – AB+n+(moral)*. ‘Should be’ strikes me a unnecessary padding.
29 RESIST – (I’s)rev in rest
30 ROSETTES – cryptic def’n
31 BYPASS – double def’n
Down
1 KEDGEREE – (e.g. + reeked)*. An enjoyable surface reading.
2 PASTICHE – (Is the cap)*
3 CARPETED
5 ASHIER – cashier – c
6 JABBER – Again, the pun on ‘knife user’ didn’t really work for me, especially it doesn’t seem to enhance the smoothness of the surface. I’d have gone for something like “Boxer, perhaps, yaps fast”.
7 RUINED – (inured)*
8 MARTYR – revisiting the ‘late’ (= dead) device.
12 CURSIVE
15 SOS – palindrome
16 BED
18 REFINERY – Re+finery, and a nicely misleading surface.
19 BASILICA – BA+silica
20 DEFLATES – (fed)rev + (least)*. A Cyclops-type bout of flatulence…
22 IMPAIR (II+ramp)*
23 AMENDS – men in ads
24 ARARAT – ref the post-diluvian resting spot of Noah’s Ark.
25 INHALE