Advisory

Because of one rotten egg in the blog I have taken the following step.

I have changed the settings to custom readers.

Those of you are unable to comment now onwards please send me an email and I will add you to the custom readers list. That way I can delete someone who doesn't follow the rules.

Please bear with me for a few days I will add all the regulars by sending you an invitation to join after you send me your email.

In case you do not get the email after I send it, please check your Spam folder.

No 14516, Friday 20 Jun 2025, Bruno

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

Each commenter is requested to post only 5 answers thereby giving others also a chance to participate. Please provide all your answers in one comment.

Thanks for the response, here's the regular blog.

ACROSS

1   Punishment's one way to preserve without honey, essentially (6) CANING CANnING

4   America's about boys circling old city neighbourhood (6) SUBURB {US<=}{B}{UR}{B}

9   Protest to repeal privileges essentially dropped (4) STIR RIghTS<=

10 Surprised man soon crashed vehicle (10) MOONSTRUCK {M}{SOON*}{TRUCK}

11 Professional film portraying leader of Wales (6) LAWYER {LA{Wa..s}YER}

12 River running through toxic slum air is characteristic of undeveloped area (8) RURALISM {R} in PSLUM+AIR}*

13 Girl's going around Indonesian island with head therapist and healer (9) HERBALIST {HER{BALI}S}{Th...t}

15 Stuff starts in summer - takes one week (4) STOW Acrostic

16 River and harmful stream (4) RILL {R}{ILL}

17 Peacekeeper's chief detective caught in the middle of fake alcohol problem (9) CONUNDRUM {UN}{De...e} in {CON}{RUM}

21 Artist framing groin artistically on dead - a feature of 4ac? (4,4) RING ROAD {R{GROIN*}A}{D}

22 Firm just fired leader to toe the line (6) COMPLY {CO}{aMPLY}

24 Overreliance of Pence ended in trouble (10) DEPENDENCE*

25 Unpleasant feeling that distant relative, finally would be visiting (4) FEAR {F{r...vE}AR}

26 Article on medicine covered a particular topic (6) THEMED {THE}{MED}

27 Ghost with hair billowing around bone (6) WRAITH {W+HAIR}* over {T}

DOWN

1   House is away from geostatic orbits (7) COTTAGE GEOsTATiC*

2   Niece's head injured - very anxious (5) NERVY {Ni..e}{VERY*}

3   Figure of hurt lumberman - medic abandoned (7) NUMERAL LUmbERMAN*

5   Numerous ordinary men starting to come out swaggering, becoming less confident (6) UNSURE NUmERoUS*

6   Runners often get happy - that may not be connected (9) UNRELATED {rUnNeRs}{ELATED}

7   Money was returned by lumberjack's assistant (7) BUCKSAW {BUCK}{WAS<=}

8   Identical score composed about Royal lake in Germany (13) CORRESPONDING {CO{R}RES*}{POND}{IN}{G}

14 Italian boy transporting Congolese leader disappeared (9) BOLOGNESE {B}{cONGOLESE}*

16 After rain stopped early, people got out finally with clothing (7) RAIMENT {RAIn}{MEN}{ouT}

18 Dubious type of energy upper classes promoted (7) UNCLEAR (+u)UN(-u)CLEAR

19 Heartless relative remains free (7) UNLEASH {UNcLE}{ASH}

20 Nurse withheld documents - hiding recall (6) CODDLE [T<=]

23 Both genders linked by union, rejecting it is religious scholar (5) MUFTI {M}{U}{F}{IT<=}

Reference List

 Boy = B, Old city = UR, Man = M, River = R, Artist = RA, Dead = D, Firm = CO, With = W, Bone = T, Medic = MB, Royal = R, Germany = G, Upper class = U, Genders = M,F, Union = U