No shortage of cleverness here! Some of these clues needed a second (or third) look before I could be sure I had parsed them correctly. My clear favourite is 17 down: natural surface, original wordplay. 26 across and 19 down were also amusing, and 20 down was impressively put together.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | PUT-UP JOB PUT UP (nominate) JOB (patient man) |
| 5 | LIMPET LIMP (plastic) ET (alien) |
| 10 | ADVERSE ADVERTS (publicity campaign) minus T[ime] plus E[nergy] |
| 11 | OVERARM *([p]ROM RAVE) |
| 12 | ARRAY A + homophone of RAY (beam) |
| 13 | UNNATURAL even letters in rUnNiNg At ThUg ReAlLy |
| 14 | NATIONAL DEBT dd. The second reference is to the Grand National or National Hunt racing generally |
| 18 | ACHILLES HEEL *(HELL LIES + EACH) |
| 21 | SARGASSUM GAS (fuel) in SARS (virus) + [d]UM[p] (“dump contents”) |
| 23 | NACHO NA (not available) + CHO[p] (“chop end off”) |
| 24 | OFFBEAT OFF (away) BEAT (journey) |
| 25 | UP-AND-UP U (homophone of “you”) PAN (criticise) DUP (Democratic Unionist Party = “political party”) |
| 26 | TUSCAN TU (“you,” French) SCAN (run over) |
| 27 | WHITECAP dd |
| Down | |
| 1 | PLAZAS PL[ace] + A, Z (letters furthest apart) + AS (“when,” trailing) |
| 2 | TAVERN AV (bible) in [s]TERN (grave without S[uccess]) |
| 3 | PARTY WALL PARTY (ball) W[ith] ALL (everyone) |
| 4 | OPEN UNIVERSITY Sort of a reverse clue. Open University, briefly, is OU, which is “where” in French |
| 6 | INERT INTER (bury) moving T[ime] to the end |
| 7 | PEA GREEN AGREE (match) in PEN (write) |
| 8 | TEMPLATE TEMP (employee) LATE (dead) |
| 9 | DOWN IN THE MOUTH d&cd |
| 15 | LIE IN WAIT E, W (both flanks) in *(INITIAL) |
| 16 | PASSPORT PAs (secretaries) SPORT (fun) |
| 17 | SHERIFFS SHE RIFFS (woman plays guitar) |
| 19 | ACIDIC CID (police) in A1 (road) + C[aught] |
| 20 | VOX POP V[ery] O[ld] XP (version of Windows) OP. (works, almost) |
| 22 | ARENA hidden in bARE NAked |
Thanks Agentzero. I got them all except 5a. I was convinced “mine” was “pit” which blinded me to all else. There were also a couple which I solved but without fully understanding the word play. 2a, 15a, and 21a come to mind. Personal favorite was 4d.
While I only got about half out, I was very impressed by the clues. If I’d got 16d , things might have been different. i had secretary=pa but couldn’t think of fun =sport. So thank you setter -don’t think I ve done a Phssthpok before- and blogger