Many witty clues with nice surfaces today. I found this pleasant and not too tough.
Favourites: APPENDIX, ACACIA.
Across
1 CUT A DASH CUT (canal, as a verb in the wordplay) + D (Duke) in A ASH (wood)
5 ACACIA A CA (about) CIA (spies)
9 ALOE VERA (AREA VOLE)*
10 AVERSE A VERSE (rhyme). Stock wordplay, regulars would have got this easily.
11 APPENDIX d&cd
12 TROUGH TOUGH (hard) around R (river)
14,18 THE PILLARS OF HERCULES (HERO S HELPFUL ARTICLES)*
22 DAMAGE Ag (silver) in DAME (lady)
23 GRANDEUR GR (Greek) A[mphitheatre] (UNDER)*. Neat use of “ground” as anagrind for “under”.
24 ERRATA RAT (rotten type) in ERA (time)
25 ANGLESEY ANGLES (views) EY[e] (look at, endlessly)
26 TRYING TRY (test) IN (elected) G (leader in ‘Ghana’)
27 HENCHMAN HENMAN (tennis star, Tim Henman) around CH (chapter). Another nice indicator, “penned”.
Down
1 CRAVAT RAV[e] (party) in CAT (slang for a guy)
2 TROUPE (REP OUT)*
3 DIVINE dd
4 STRAIGHT UP STRAIGHT (tidy) UP (at university)
6 COVERALL CALL (phone) around OVER (extra)
7 CIRCULAR dd. plug = advertisement in the wordplay
8 AMETHYST A (article) ME (yours truly) THY (your old) ST (abbrev for stone, the unit of weight)
13 APPEARANCE ACE (one) around PEAR (fruit) in PAN (bowl)
15 COLD FEET OLD (former) FEE (charge) in CT (court)
16 CHAMBRAY A MB (doctor) under CH (church), + RAY (beam)
17 BRIGHTON B (book) RIGHT-ON (trendy)
19 EN BLOC (ONCE)* around BL (British library)
20 JETSAM (J + MATES)*
21 CRAYON C[otton] + RAYON (fabric), with drawer meaning ‘one used for drawing’ in the wordplay.
Hi Shuchi,
Thanks for explaining 13D, I thought it was ‘APPEARANCE’ but couldn’t figure out the wordplay
I parsed 8D as A (article) ME (yours truly) THY (your old) ST (stone)
Thanks Shuchi. You have a typo in 2DN, should be TROUPE, not TROUE.
Thank you ChrisM and verbose.
I’ve fixed the typo now and updated 8D, which looks much better with ChrisM’s parsing.