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Good afternoon All! I have finished the grid apart from 10a/11d for which I have a french definition of a farm & sliders, neither of which I can parse. I have both the top and bottom lines and the two sides but what do I high-light? Top line? Bottom line? Both sides? Nothing seems to add up to both 4 words and 16 letters. Help please.

Hi MM

10a is Baa (banzai heartless with the i as extra)
11d is akee- Rakee is a spirit take r for river off the top.

You highlight the winner after sorting out the clash cell and

'It's not' in penultimate row

and

'Coming home' in bottom row.

It is a pun on the original lyrics.

Thank you, all very obvious when explained. Also, had the wrong plural for 17a.......!

Can't find anyone here who has struggled to parse ABJECT. There seem to be two defs (throw out, and slave) but where does the drug bit come in?

Also, I see that one solver has commented on how clever it was to set a puzzle that couldn't be solved until a few hours after publication, but has no one stopped to marvel that it couldn't have been set and submitted until after Wednesday's match? That's a pretty amazing achievement. The Telegraph crossword editor must have waved it through, as I can't see there being enough time for the usual vetting process.

With sailor taking drug, throw out slave (6) Abject

My parsing is often dodgy, but …

AB = Sailor
Eject = throw out
Taking drug = remove the E (Ecstasy), so Ject.

Does this work?

Many thanks and, yes, it does work, but in a convoluted sort of way. Perhaps the clues had to be rushed out to meet the highly unusual deadline requirements.

Thanks, Iona. I wondered if the setter had prepared a version for a successful outcome for ….a team closer to home.

iona

Yes it was a brilliant achievement to do it so quickly - but it helped that the compiler IS the Editor, so it short-cuts the normal process.

He might have had several versions to cover all possibilities, but I bet he just knocked out this one in a couple of days. I agree about some of the clues - but he wont have had enough time to polish them.

When entries have closed, I might ask how many versions he had.

Brilliant effort.