1: Abridged fibre project (3)

4: Increase in force may finish in soccer riot (9)

9: North African port with more flavour (7)

10: Men going mad in far east blackout (7)

11: Rue loss of rare bird (5)

12: Persuade you to buy low-cal, so to speak, for unsightly fat (9)

13: Curled back at last course (7)

15: Initially, teaching language using few words (5)

17: Good Republican source of life-giving system for short-handed office workers (5)

19: Excitedly married beau (7)

22: Design for absurd flotation device (9)

23: One who gets up part of stairway (5)

24: Our tree worked out how to send out in another way (7)

25: Send Tim out for attitude (4-3)

26: Help stamp out leaflets (9)

27: Help found in Adelaide. (3)

1: Dance in Spooner's very cold prison (9)

2: Get used to being in Treasury Department with a secure job (7)

3: Is South about to evacuate? Just the opposite! (5)

4: Small boat from County Clare, possibly (7)

5: Paul wears shirt the wrong way to provide shoulder covering (7)

6: The bandleader channels energy.(9)

7: Nits are possibly more unpleasant (7)

8: Squaddies took in lecture (5)

14: Flying bugs share desert flora (9)

16: Sadly, Tim agreed and left the country (9)

18: Amplification device for 'Murder, a Novel' (7)

19: Expert made to order in the world of scholarship (7)

20: French ladies made Sam mad (7)

21: Albatross, seals cluster here! (4,3)

22: Remove a couple of statues before writing on some tombstones (5)

23: Wander around stove (5)