by Tom Rose
Editor’s note: The solutions to this puzzle are available here.
Across
1 A unit representative of a typical, grizzly hospital (8,6)
9 Gods of a mount from the east (5)
10 A welcoming signal? (9)
11 Decapitate pig with blade (3)
12 Minecraft block-style copper starts to become increasingly corroded (5)
13 Make a bet, lose £1000, walk on slowly (5)
14 Time left in the end for map (5)
16 Trust money with one big booty redhead (9)
18 Princess: ‘I’m not going to stay in charge.’ (5)
19 Bulk deliverer to repackage his original crap (5,4)
21 Sour bop organisers expressed indignation (7)
23 Doctor, I sedate first, scan, then I probe? (7)
25 Alphabet to reorganise its letters, holding accessory character (7)
26 Cloth covering sure to keep you from losing energy (7)
27 ‘Take one of the top three chess pieces.’ Old plotter is a pro at planning moves (13)
Down
1 Sign to confirm consent and close off endless agreement (4,2,8)
2 A penal colony, as a trial, shuffled around leading undesirables (9)
3 Column about bar with enticing interior (5)
4 Uncommon segment of Welsh dish (7)
5 What Armstrong rode on to be in regular orbit (7)
6 What Plato would call a natural leader? (5)
7 Stash looted food north after revolution in capital (9)
8 ‘Objection! Nutrition rep? That’s ridiculous!’ (12)
15 A globe almost fully captured in CT of anus component (9)
17 Troubled SOS on phone: ‘head right back’ (7)
19 Brighten into extremely jovial goodbye (7)
20 It drives competitively fast, forwards and in reverse (7)
22 Green is in fashion? (5)
24 A portrayal of Isengard’s foremost wizard (5)
How Cryptic Clues Work
Though not always formulaic, a cryptic clue is generally made of two halves: one that defines the answer, and one that constructs it using wordplay. This could be an anagram, taking abbreviations, using a less obvious definition, or some other trick. These halves can be in either order and can be connected by a short word. Here are two examples of deconstructed clues, with the definition half underlined.
- It makes things no greater bafflingly (9): GENERATOR
Anagram of NO GREATER (‘bafflingly’ indicates a baffling arrangement of the letters) - Before it reversed, craft was characteristic (5): TRAIT
ART (synonym of ‘craft’) reversed before IT
The Poor Print 
