Dac never fails. His clues always have excellent surfaces and their parsing is straightforward and not open to argument.
Definitions underlined.
Across
1 Part of breakfast, say, put in fridge mistakenly (5,3)
FRIED EGG
eg in (fridge)*
5 A Conservative chancellor rules over inflation ultimately (6)
LAWSON
laws o {inflatio}n
9 Playwright sounded bad-tempered with most of crew (8)
RATTIGAN
“ratty” gan{g}
10 Girl producing article – fancy – with end missing (6)
ANDREA
an drea{m}
11 Immodest tennis champ overcomes poor player at start of set (9)
SHAMELESS
S(ham)eles s{et} — ref. Monica Seles — the poor player isn’t a tennis player as the clue leads us to think
13 Part of kitchen fixed by English couple (5)
UNITE
unit E
14 Travellers returned money after end of trip (11)
BACKPACKERS
back [= returned] p ackers — which is a slang word for money that I had to look up to confirm
17 Arsenal excited, about to try old Newcastle player (4,7)
ALAN SHEARER
hear in (Arsenal)* — I was prepared to have my historical football knowledge tested, but this player is fortunately fairly recent
20 Railway in French area going in wrong direction for Austrian region (5)
TYROL
(Lo(ry)t)rev.
21 Entering bank, old woman appears more nervous (9)
TWITCHIER
t(witch)ier
23 Briefly join Khmer leader for raid (6)
ATTACK
attac{h} K{hmer}
24 His text sent about one’s milestone birthday? (8)
SIXTIETH
(His text)* around 1 — I had wondered if Dac was approaching his sixtieth, but looked him up to find that this was not the case
25 Order tinned nuts (6)
INDENT
(tinned)*
26 Clever sort in IOW town, with no second name (8)
INVENTOR
in Vent{n}or — not for Dac the sloppy way some setters have, of saying ‘without name’ even though there are two n’s in the word Ventnor
Down
1 Source of timber becoming softer with treatment (6)
FOREST
(softer)*
2 I lifted paintings into extremely nifty container from office (2-4)
IN-TRAY
I (art)rev. in n{ift}y
3 Steer car out of blasted river (5)
DRIVE
Hidden in blasteD RIVEr
4 Fellow imbibes a small amount of liquid after party, showing sign of stress (5,6)
GRAVE ACCENT
g(rave a c.c.)ent — a cubic centimetre — I had my doubts about a grave accent being a sign of stress, since in French it isn’t so far as I know, but this article tells us that it is indeed a sign of stress in some other languages
6 I say, woman has decapitated nightclub employee (9)
ANNOUNCER
Ann {b}ouncer
7 Short of time, celebrity eats fish (8)
SARDINES
s{t}ar dines
8 Make home around region in part of Asia (4,4)
NEAR EAST
ne(area)st
12 Care what you’ll get from new glasses? (11)
SUPERVISION
When you wear the new glasses you will have super vision
14 Outlaw cases compound belonging to church (9)
BASILICAN
ba(silica)n — ban = outlaw, silica = compound — ‘cases’ a transitive verb
15 Beef with crust possibly cut by foreign friend (8)
PASTRAMI
pastr{y} ami
16 Closely followed wild predator (8)
PARROTED
(predator)*
18 Poor court usher (6)
DIRECT
dire ct
19 Character in radio series who takes a bow? (6)
ARCHER
An archer takes a bow (and arrow) — ref The Archers
22 Shared first portion taken from pie dish (5)
CUTIE
cut {p}ie — cut = shared
*anagram
I agree that this was another excellent Dac puzzle, albeit towards the easier end of his spectrum IMHO. The CUTIE/INVENTOR crossers were my last ones in, mainly because it took me a while to see shared=cut at 22dn.
Well we have to make a comment as there is only one other one. It seems to be the ‘problem’
with Dac- there’s nothing normally that causes any problems!
We liked 12d in particular!
Thanks to Dac and John.
Precision beyond compare. Thanks to Dac and John. (Any thoughts on derivation of “ackers”?)
William F P – one source states that it derived from the name of an Egyptian coin – akkas. It was used by the RAF from about 1925. By 1950 it was also used as the name for an army pay-sergeant.
B & J –
Interesting. All I could find for “acker” was a ripple of water (‘cat’s paw’) or, much earlier, a bore (as in Severn). Or an obsolete spelling of ‘acre’. Your information seems much more relevant.
I once worked in a village called Whitesmith. I was naturally intrigued by the meaning of ‘whitesmith’, its relation with blacksmith and so on (I know now). I asked colleagues, some of whom had worked, even lived, there for many years. Not one knew – or had even asked themselves the question! I found that an eye-opening, and scary, insight into people’s general lack of enquiry!
Not you though!
Many thanks for your kind enlightenment. Have a lovely day, you two! (It’s sun and blue skies in Eastbourne – for a change!)
Took ages to get going on this. My first pass produced absolutely zilch, then I spotted TYROL and gradually everything else emerged. Last in was CUTIE with wordfinder help.
But thanks to Dac and John