Apologies for the late blog; a little short on time today. Not a lot to comment on; I have a weakness for reverse anagrams, so I liked 18 across.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | PEDIGREE PE[n] DI[d] GREE[n] (“tips” of the words are removed) |
| 5 | THATCH THAT (not this) CH (church) |
| 10 | NOT HALF dd |
| 11 | LAMBADA A in LAMBDA (Greek character) |
| 12 | AZURE AZ (Arizona) URE (river) |
| 13 | NECESSARY *(AS SCENERY) |
| 14 | MISTRANSLATE MIST (water droplets) RAN (dripped) SLATE (black stone) |
| 18 | WASTE PRODUCT reverse anagram; *(WASTE) = SWEAT |
| 21 | BALALAIKA BA[n] + *(ALKALI) |
| 23 | AMINO A MINO[r] |
| 24 | INITIAL first letters of In Names It Transpires It’s A Letter |
| 25 | KREMLIN GREMLIN (mistake) substituting K for G |
| 26 | GUTTED dd |
| 27 | LEOTARDS LEOPARDS (cats) substituting T for P |
| Down | |
| 1 | PENTAD PENT (imprisoned) AD (the present time) |
| 2 | DETOUR O (no) T[ime{ in RUED (regretted), all reversed; the reversal indicator is also the definition |
| 3 | GRAPEVINE G[ood] + PE (exercise) in RAVINE (valley) |
| 4 | ENFANT TERRIBLE *(TEEN BRAT N[ew] RIFLE) |
| 6 | HYMNS homophone; MEN = “HIMS”, I guess |
| 7 | TEARAWAY dd |
| 8 | HEAVY-SET HEAVY (thug) SET (TV) |
| 9 | BLOCK AND TACKLE dd |
| 15 | SACRAMENT *(MAN’S CRATE) |
| 16 | SWABBING B[lack] BIN (receptacle) in SWAG (looted goods) |
| 17 | PSALMIST S (succeeded) in PALMIST (fortunre teller) |
| 19 | PILLAR ILL (suffering) in PAR (mean) |
| 20 | WOUNDS WOUND (crooked) S[aint] |
| 22 | LOIRE I[sland] in LORE (ancient knowledge) |
Thanks Agentzero.
Enjoyable puzzle from the unpronounceable one,nothing too difficult and nothing controversial either.
I also liked 18 across and thought 1 across was clever(don’t see many clues of that kind).
Other favourites were 5 across(&lit?) and the anagram at 4 down.