I hope Julius will forgive me for saying this, but what a lot of rubbish!
Thank you Julius.

ACROSS | ||
1 | LITTER BAGS | Spooner’s resentful convicts found down in the dumps (6,4) |
Spoonersim of “bitter lags” (resentful criminals) – things found at the dump | ||
7 | EARL | Nobleman almost naked (4) |
nEARLy (almost) with no outside letters (naked) | ||
9 | ORCA | Creature seen in our ocean frequently (4) |
every other letter (frequently) of OuR oCeAn – a killer whale, seen in the ocean | ||
10 | DIRTY BOMBS | Toxic, explosive articles stirring up Brits by Dom (5,5) |
anagram (stirring up) of BRITS BY DOM | ||
11 | TECHIE | Energy saved by support bod working in IT (6) |
CHI (energy) inside (saved by) TEE (support) | ||
12 | PANDEMIC | Strongly criticise Ms Moore, about to become viral worldwide? (8) |
PAN (strongly criticise) DEMI (MS Demi Moore, actress) and C (circa, about) | ||
13 | BIN LADEN | Notorious individual describing one stuffed with 1? (3,5) |
definition / cryptic definition – Osama Bin Laden | ||
15 | IMHO | Leader of Italian resistance unit retired, giving modest address (4) |
Italian (first letter, leader of) then OHM (resistance unit) reversed (retired) – in my humble opinion | ||
17 | SPIV | Sun’s leader, page 4, such a disreputable character! (4) |
Sun (first letter, leader of) then P (page) IV (four) | ||
19 | HIERATIC | Discuss loftier garret of priests (8) |
sounds like (to discuss) “higher attic” (loftier garret) | ||
22 | PROSPERO | The Duke of Milan’s quite correct to defend son, Oscar (8) |
PROPER (quite correct) contains (to defend) S (son) then O (oscar, phonetic alphabet) – the Duke of Milan in The Tempest | ||
23 | REFUSE | France pitching in to recycle garbage (6) |
F (France) inside (pitching in to) REUSE (recycle) | ||
25 | GARTER BELT | Bra – letter G – tailored item of ladies underwear (6,4) |
anagram (tailored) of BRA LETTER G | ||
26 | TALE | Hear end of story (4) |
sounds like (head) “tail” (end) | ||
27 | HEAP | At a knockdown price, Charlie shifted pile (4) |
cHEAP (at knockdown price) missing (with…shifted) C (charlie, phonetic alphabet) | ||
28 | SINGS ALONG | Participates vocally in hairdressing salon gossip (5,5) |
found inside hairdresSING SALON Gossip | ||
DOWN | ||
2 | ISRAELI | National Inquirer’s no.1 serial criminal (7) |
Inquirer (first letter, no. 1) then anagram (criminal) of SERIAL | ||
3 | TRASH | Waste time being over-hasty (5) |
T (time) on (being over) RASH (hasty) | ||
4 | REDHEADS | Embarrassed leaders such as Kinnock and Kennedy? (8) |
RED (embarrassed) and HEADS (leaders) – JFK and Neil perhaps | ||
5 | A DROP IN THE OCEAN | Insignificant event preceding tsunami (1,4,2,3,5) |
double/cryptic definition | ||
6 | SPYING | Working with intelligence, start to plant yard with grass border (6) |
Plant (first letter, start to) inside (with…border) SING (grass) | ||
7 | ESOTERICA | I see actor throwing out collection of arcane items (9) |
anagram (throwing out) of I SEE ACTOR | ||
8 | RUBBISH | Poor Bobbie regularly given the run around (7) |
every other letter (regularly) of BoBbIe inside (given…around) RUSH (run) | ||
14 | LIVES IT UP | Copies Riley doing real-time tummy exercise? (5,2,2) |
LIVE (real-time) SIT-UP (tummy exercise) – living the life of Riley | ||
16 | DETRITUS | Litter? New duster will collect it (8) |
anagram (new) of DUSTER contains (will collect) IT | ||
18 | PERVADE | Rising salesman Dave struggling to spread effectively (7) |
REP (salesman) reversed (rising) then anagram (struggling) of DAVE | ||
20 | INSULIN | Puttin’ down timeless drug (7) |
INSULtIN’ (puttin’ down) missing T (timeless) | ||
21 | DEBRIS | Conclude Bristol is packed with dross (6) |
found inside (packed with) concluDE BRIStol | ||
24 | FATAL | Deadly river claiming reserves (5) |
FAL (River in Cornwall) contains (claiming) TA (the former Territorial Army, reserves) |
I would have thought that Kennedy is more likely to refer to the late Charles Kennedy in 4D
thanks J and PD! Great blog and puzzle — I’m very bitter about not seeing litter bags. no excuses. BIN LADEN (the clue) was clever
Thanks to Julius and PeeDee. I took a while parsing TECHIE, but the TRASH motif helped elsewhere. I agree that in 4d Kennedy is not JFK.
Thanks for a great blog, PeeDee.
Pretty high-class rubbish! I particularly enjoyed HIERATIC and the well-hidden SINGS ALONG.
Many thanks, Julius – it was fun.
I spent far too long trying to figure out homophones and/or anagrams in 28a. For a while I even wondered if ‘hairdresser’ needed lifting and separating – with the def maybe referencing a character in the musical Hair – but of course that yielded nothing. I couldn’t believe how deceptively simple it was when I finally twigged it. For my money that was the best clue in a great set.
Thanks to all.
hi PeeDee…I’d have been disappointed if your intro hadn’t said that, actually!
Thanks for the blog, and to those who have commented (I did mean dear Charlie Kennedy in the REDHEADS clue, fwiw)
best wishes to all, Rob/Julius
Thanks PeeDee for the blog — I never could have parsed FATAL even though I guessed it correctly. A new word for me was HIERATIC — I got that from the clarity and cleverness of the clue. I still get thrown by initialisms like IMHO; I expect a numeration like (4) to be a four letter word or at least an acronym but I guess (1,1,1,1) would be quite awkward. PANDEMIC, EARL, and LIVES IT UP were esp. fun. Thanks Julius for another good one.
Really enjoyed this, especially the spooner and my last one, 13. Thank you Rob and PeeDee.
Thanks Julius and PeeDee
Entertaining puzzle done on the train into and back from a work function last evening. A good mix of clue devices and was especially impressed with the long hidden clue at 28a which inspired me to immediately find the other hidden one at 21d. The Spoonerism at 1a was deceptively hard even though LAGS was a good bet for the second word. SPIV raised a grin with its cheeky surface and clever construction.
Finished up in that NW corner with the clever TECHIE (relatively easy enough to see, but took a while to understand the word play), REDHEAD (where I opted for JF having never heard of Charlie) and the excellent BIN LADEN clue as the last one.
Thanks Rob, that was fun! I saw PeeDee’s byline on the 225 index and was gobsmacked .. had to do the xwd first before reading this. Very clever work showing you can indeed make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.
lots of fun, thanks Julius and peedee