February 2018 Puzzles and Solutions

Across

• 1/7 His nephew’s cries brought about rumours (7,8)
• 5 Column about human resources or shot putter, perhaps? (7)
• 9 Jargon befuddling open prisoners (5)
• 10 Actor’s of French equivalence before French god (9)
• 11 Strange map repositioned stars (10)
• 12 Finally take up the ultimate weapon (4)
• 14 Reprint items originally read wrongly (12)
• 18 Gloss in two different languages? (6,6)
• 21 Leaders of every trading nation attended summit (4)
• 22 Made connections as I coasted around (10)
• 25 Delay police investigation after a change of heart (9)
• 26 Artist adds 502 arm parts (5)
• 27/8 Foreign tour neutralises game of risk (7,8)
• 28 Basic fencing around good man’s paradise (7)

• Down

• 1 Radical I photographed capturing leader (6)
• 2 Batting period’s making headway after loss of opener (6)
• 3 Bigheads, for example, in Asian countries seem initially to embrace another Asian country (10)
• 4 Better tree (5)
• 5 Form came into contact with aluminium alloy (4,5)
• 6 Bloody scarce (4)
• 7 See 1 Across
• 8 See 27 Across
• 13 Supports Serbia’s free and unlimited press (10)
• 15 Inspire little fiend and fool with itchy top on (9)
• 16 Criminal’s not on target with the Queen (8)
• 17 Brings back together wayward retinues (8)
• 19 Way one of Verdi’s operas lifts arenas (6)
• 20 Something unusual is not even unknown about it (6)
• 23 Oscar meets a French church cat (5)
• 24 Objector is against extracting gas willy-nilly (4)