A pleasant solve today though perhaps not as hard as is usual for a Wednesday. There may be some errors or typos below because I am having some work done on the house and the noise is making it difficult to concentrate or think clearly.
Across
1 BILL OF HEALTH BILL (police) O[fficer] *(HALF THE)
8 EMBARGO MBA (business graduate) in ERGO (therefore)
9 TRADE-IN D[amag]E in TRAIN (coach)
11 COLLEGE COL (pass) LEG (stage) [th]E
12 POULENC N (new) in *(couple)
13 NANNY AN (article) in NN (news) [agenc]Y
14 ON AVERAGE NAVE (part of church) in ORA[n]GE (colour not navy)
16 INFLUENZA FLUE (smoker) in INN (bar) Z[one] A[bused]
19 SLUMP *([i]MPULS[e])
21 IMBIBER BI (twice) in [t]IMBER (wood)
23 ETRURIA *(R[o]UTE) AIR (character) reversed
24 MARSALA MAR (soil) ALAS (sadly) reversed
25 NEBULAE [cl]E[aners] in *(unable)
26 TELEPHONE PAD *(HELP NOTE) PAD (another, ie note-pad)
Down
1 BABYLON BABY (dear) LON[don] (capital’s northern half)
2 LARCENY R[e]C[r]E[a]N[t] in LAY (amateurish)
3 ON ONES OWN ON ON (repeated live) E (electronic) SOWN (broadcast)
4 HET UP HE (male) TUP (male sheep)
5 AS A RULE RU (own sport) in A SALE (a rugby union club)
6 THERESA HERES[y] (nonconformity not unknown) in TA (army)
7 MERCANTILISM *(IN ARTICLES) in MM (2000)
10 NICKEL PLATED NICK (can, prison) L[abrador’s] in *(PET LEAD)
15 AGAMEMNON GAME (contest) in *(MAN) ON (running)
17 FABERGE F[ence] ERG (work unit) in ABE (Lincoln)
18 UMBRAGE E (eastern) GARB (dress) MU (Greek character) reversed
19 SCRUB UP CRU (vintage) B[ugatti] in SUP (slug)
20 UNRULED dd
22 ROACH *(OAR) C (caught) H (hard)
Thank-you for the blog and time Mr Gaufrid.
Aardvark – I thought this puzzle was rather great. My girlfriend her sister and I cracked through this during our supper – nice entertainment for us all.
Good stuff Sir. (if you read this)
Jake.
I think 26a. fits better as *(HELP NOTE) EP (recording) AD (Another Dialler, primarily). You seem to lose the third E.
petero
You are entirely right regarding 26a. With the distraction of the workmen I had in I didn’t get the chance to do my usual recheck of the parsing of each clue.