Don’t know where Dude Ranch is though but its probably just a click away on you tube.

And out of interest, is there an opposite of an &lit because, as gentlemen of a certain age may be able to verify, the blue pills (see 18 ac) make you happy not sad. (as long as you don’t buy the dodgy ones off the internet that is.

I have no problem with ‘real’ sounding like ‘reel’. It’s just the combination ‘real aid’ bothers me a little as a homophone of ‘relayed’. I think it is to do with the way the word is stressed, but it is a small point in a v enjoyable puzzle!

sidey and liz, I wasn’t able to enjoy 24d whatsoever, since I missed it – I had (ahem) DROLLY. My thinking process here is too tortured to explain, but my first two mistakes were thinking “drolly” a synonym for “casually” and “dr” an abbreviation for “drawing”…

mhl and liz, put me down as another who had ROYAL for far too long – I was much too influenced by yesterday’s clue.

sidey, in the U.S. at least, “real” and “reel” are considered such exact homophones that, for example, “reel life” is a virtual commonplace whenever a journalist wants to write something clever about the relationship between films and reality.

Eileen, thank you for spoiling my day! The good part was finishing two days running, but that meant having to face up to the awful self knowledge that I still remembered that dire ditty about the bikini. Now you tell me it is just a click away on You Tube? AAAARRRGHH!