No 14195, Friday 07 Jun 2024, Arden

RULES FOR POSTING COMMENTS FOR FRIDAY ONLY

All those who are not regular commenters but who are rookie commenters or silent followers of the blog are requested to post answers with annotations in the comments section. In your own interest please avoid looking up the answers from the interactive version. Don't hesitate to post your annotations, in case you make a mistake in the annotation someone will correct it with the right annotation.

PLEASE NOTE, SOLUTIONS WITHOUT ATTEMPTING THE ANNOTATIONS WILL BE DELETED

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ACROSS

1   Helps to follow extremely powerful material (6) PLAIDS {AIDS}<=>{Po...uL}

4   Somehow bear with it, need to return to the city (8) ABERDEEN {BEAR*}{NEED<=}

9   Sea creatures once, regularly seen with a head gear (6) OCTOPI {OnCe}{TOPI} 

10 He is on top of the bridge on a small ship (8) BLIGHTER {Br...e}{LIGHTER}

12 Journalistic order, not just satirical (8) IRONICAL {jOuRNALIstIC}*

13 Greek and German shrine (6) GROTTO {GR}{OTTO}

15 Fail to invite a tenant farmer (4,1,7) COME A CROPPER {COME}{A}{CROPPER}

18 Best to back hundred and one (6,2,4) SECOND TO NONE {SECOND}{TON}{ONE}

21 Come back to a distiller (6) RETORT [DD]

22 Generate fancy drink (5,3) GREEN TEA*

24 Show off food with fibre (8) BRANDISH {DISH}<=>{BRAN}

25 Run around parts of London, it's a swindle (6) FLEECE {FLEE}{CE}

26 Shepherd stories, half of them have copy (8) CHAPERON {CH{APE}RONicles}

27 See obstruction in the button hole (6) EYELET {EYE}{LET}

DOWN

1   Royalty gets 50% over land (8) PROVINCE {PR{OVer}INCE} 

2   Byzantine fort with guns all around - examples of creativity (3,5) ART FORMS {AR{FORT*}MS}

3   Copy link for a card game (9,6) DUPLICATE BRIDGE {DUPLICATE}{BRIDGE}

5   Tribal men guard one that heals (4) BALM [T]

6   Recovered glory incorporating last of the exotic dance (5,2,8) ROGER DE COVERLEY  {RECOVERED+GLORY+thE}*

7   Close to the country manor (6) ESTATE {thE}{STATE}

8   Slender direction pointer (6) NARROW {N}ARROW}

11 He waves a flag and on cue three of them enter (7) PATRIOT {PA{TRIO}T}

14 Somehow press got the identity of these black widows (7) SPIDERS {SP{ID}ERS*}

16 Day time, it's money city (8) MONTREAL {MON}{T}{REAL}

17 A day spent in modest surroundings is immoral (8) DECADENT {DEC{A}{D}ENT}

19 Language bill, teacher allowed without book (6) ARABIC {A{RAbBI}C}

20 Even boot strap, what a capital! (6) OTTAWA {bOoT+sTrAp+WhAt}

23 Industrial action exposed the capital (4) OSLO {gO SLOw}

Reference List

Greek = GR, Hundred = TON, Parts of London = CE, Identity = ID, Time = T, Day = D, Book = B