An incredible puzzle – absolutely brilliant. In line with 14 across EVERY across solution had the name of a tree within the word as an internal part. The clues are, as always from Virgilius a real joy. Solving time, 12 mins. In across clues, trees shown in bold. Many thanks, Virgilius!
* = anagram
7 EYE “I” WASH (seem convincing) YEW
8 ALIMENT cf ailment LIME
10 ABS ORBS SORB
11 C (AS) H I.E. R ASH
12 S OAKS OAK
13 RED PLAN(E)T PLANE
14 TREE-HUGGERS on the level = horizontal i.e. the across solutions
19 SLOPE ARMS Cryptic definition PEAR
22 A F IRE FIR
24 PELMETS (temples)* ELM
25 RE (PIN) ED PINE
26 DEP (LUM) E (deep)* Very straightforward wordplay for the unfamiliar word PLUM
27 STEARIN (nastier)* TEA
DOWN
1 PERSIA (praise)*
2 L (ACROSS)E
3 CHASER Superb double definition
4 WATCH DOG
5 DIE (the in German) S E L first letters
6 DEVIANTS (saved in t)*
7 ELAPSE Hidden
9 TURN TO if you turn ‘to’, you get OT (Old Testament)
14 T (ROLL)OPE (poet)* Brilliant surface
15 HAR (ASS)ED
16 EX (A MP L) ES
17 I (SO) POD
18 TEND ON
20 EYEFUL Great cryptic definition
21 SO REST !
23 IGNORE (region)*
Like you say, nms, thanks yet again Virgilius.
I always look forward to his.
Loved 2d. and especially 3d.
I’d skipped past 14A and had solved most of this before I realised what was going on. Once I’d cottoned on (and stopped briefly to marvel at the genius of the construction), the remaining across clues were much easier.
All told, a brilliant puzzle from a consistently brilliant setter. Good to see iPod being used in clues now too.
Nice puzzle. I stuck in FIRED for AFIRE which held me up in that corner despite the obvious anagram leading to IGNORE and the doubt of ‘ired’!
Great stuff. I had to search for the nina when I was stuck on the last couple of clues, and only saw it because it was clear TREE-HUGGERS must hold the key. But that helped with SOAKS and SLOPE ARMS (a new one on me, but the nearest I’ve got to the army was cutting the grass for them in Berlin back in the 80s).
This was brilliant stuff. I thought of tree huggers straight away but had no idea why it was the answer until I’d got a few of the across solutions. Only deplume held me up for a while because the word itself was unfamiliar and I hadn’t come across lum for chimney either. Fortunately, the tree theme helped when I noticed that plum fitted.
Surprised no one’s mentioned the extra ASH in 7 across. EYEWASH has inevitably frequently been clued by something involving “two trees”, and I’m sure that’s why it was used for the first clue.
I noticed that when solving but put it down to coincidence as the theme TREE-HUGGERS suggested the trees had to be contained within the clues, rather than at either end – also ASH was separately used in CASHIER.