By a considerable distance the hardest puzzle I have contended with for a very long time, taking over three qaurters of an hour. I hope that's because the cluing is truly stretching, and not because my powers, such as they are, are fading. I guess I'll find out if everybody else comes in under ten minutes, in which case I'll stop watching Women's Ashes cricket - Chelmsford today, a bit chilly, but a fine England win - as it clearly has a deletorious effect on my capacity for reasoning. No idea what the causal process might be.
I don't think anything is exactly iffy in the cluing, but I do think there are often Rutherfordian leaps to be made from definition to answer, and several places, such as 6 down, where the usual conventions such as short=cut, park=p, have gone off to hide in the corner while their nastier cousins come out to play.
There follows the tortured reasoning of a frail and battered brain, after which I'm definitely going for a lie down. And to think, if I hadn't been cut off from civilised connections last week, I could have left this one to George.
Across
1 COWCATCHER bar on train
Well I suppose so, but if I feed cowcatcher into my visualisation system, it gives me this:
...which doesn't look very bar like to me. Perhaps we're really in the related field of bull bars. You need to translate "fellow spectator" to the neologism CO-WATCHER, and insert a third rate C
7 CLIPpunch box (thanks McT)
Or indeed prune, so a double definition. Clip was a long way down in my lexicon of punches
9 HANDCART hellish transport
The construction is Pass=HAND (as in over) craft=ART, and maximum speed=C, the speed of light. Assemble. Refering to serious deterioration, or a disastrous course of action, the phrase "going to hell in a handcart" is of older origin than I thought, and American: an early citation is from Elbridge Paige's book of Short Patent Sermons, 1841: "[Those people] who would rather ride to hell in a hand-cart than walk to heaven supported by the staff of industry." but there are earlier similar phrases and illustrations.
10 MEMOIR (reflecting) in this
REM is the US band, and our Man is the Isle Of. Insert one into the other and "reflect", doing double duty in both wordplay and definition
11 FLUFFY frivolous
Miss gives FLUFF (think pool and snooker, or theatrical lines) and boY at last provides the Y
13 HANGABLE to be suspended
HAN is one of those convenient Chinese dynasties that save crossword compilers so much time and effort. The Hollywood actor, GABLE is presumably Clark
14 STANDARDISES regiments
Resistance: (eg Custer's Last) STAND; occurs: ARISES, wisited by D(uke)
17 TARTARE SAUCE relish
Try not to waste time thinking of a twin brother for Jack. It's just a pair of (Jack) TARS. The brother has to go with disinherited if you're going to find ESAU, cf Genesis 25 et seq. Place all of the foregoing by CE for church (of England, in case you've ever wondered).
20 COLOMBIA State
I didn't know that COLO was an alternative abbreviation for Colorado, so this puzzled me somewhat and my entry was with a bit of a shrug. (It is an abbreveiation for Colorado, acording to Chambers, but as Galspray points out, it's also an abbreviated colon, as in:. Sneaky, I call it but it saves "state" having to do twice the work.) I do know the MBA degree and inserting 1 was easy too. "State" in this clue is doing a bit of double duty, otherwise briefly has nothing to work on.
21 MODERN Contemporary
If you look ath geNRE DOMinating retrospectively, you should spot our answer, here helpfully capitalised.
22 POCKET Appropriate
As in steal. Or an area of resistance, such as the American held Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge 1944. Read the story. Don't watch the film, it's terrible, especially the ridiculous speeded up train.
23 AUTUMNAL of season
Unreversed, network and shared give LAN and MUTUAL Remove the L and reverse all.
25 COPY Pirate (verb)
Not forthcoming is COY, and the "Source" of Plunder in crossword speak is the P, which you insert.
26 COACH SCREW Big fixer
Anything in a toolbox preceded by the word coach is a large version, though I didn't know this one. Mentor's give the COACH (keep the 'S) and boasted gives CREW (verb)
Down
2 ON A PLATE evidently readily available
Clever, this. Since all are awake on time, 0 (zero/none) NAP LATE
3 COD There's a catch!
Even the short ones weren't a pushover. COD stands for Cash On Delivery, therefore not in advance
4 TOADY Flirt to gain promotion
An elegant and succinct &lit clue. Flirt also gives TOY, and a promotion might be an AD. Assemble.
5 HATCHED released clutch
Ah, right, that sort of clutch! A rare (in this crosswrod) anagram of THE, C(ar) - "initially" attaches here, and HAD
6 REMINISCE What to do in 10 (i.e. memoir).
Short here gives MINI, S(econds) provides the S, place both within REC and add E(nergy)
7 COMPASS CARD Navigational aid
You wait all this time for an anagram and suddenly a second pops up, this time of ACCORDS and MAPS. The compass card is that part of a compass on which are written the combinations of NEWS.
8 ICICLE one to hang outside
Today's take it or leave it homophone. Spot hook - "eye sickle"
12 FUNCTON KEYthing on a computer
Do, crossword speak for a party, suggests FUNCTION, and important KEY. The function keys on a keyboard are those ones on the top row that sometimes do alarming things when you press them by accident.
15 ACROBATIC going tumbling
The reptile is not the cobra I tried to fit in, but a CROCodile. A stick might in some circumstances be a BAT, and one gives I
16 SCARFACE Gangster, so called
The nickname of the fictional Tony Montana. A stole is a SCARF, and one an ACE
18 ALABAMA State
Like, in the style of, À LA. The degrees are BA and MA, natch. Conferred only there for the flow
19 ROCOCO flowery pattern. ROO comes courtesy of jumper (remember your Winnie the Pooh). Extract and insert the rest from the odd letters of CrOuCh
21 MATCH union
...and (something) to strike. Possibly the weakest clue in the set, but no' bad for a' that.
24 MAC
Mace is the spray you're looking for. Leave it short of the E, and you have something you might use in a shower in the interests of keeping dry.