Nelson (19D) was the admiral (22A) who led the Royal Navy in the Battle of Copenhagen (18A). Maybe I’ve teased out a theme here after all. Or is the theme golf (see 1A, 18A)?
Across
| 1 | S+CREW+DRIVER – Vodka and OJ – was my favourite drink in high-school (easy to drink, much like shandy). A DRIVER is a type of golf club. |
| 9 | EREWHON – (now here)*. EREWHON is a novel by Samuel Butler that I actually read in high-school (American high-schools don’t just teach Faulkner and Hemingway). It also happens to be nowhere in reverse – well, nearly (it’s a satire on utopian societies). |
| 13 | TENDER+FOOT – To FOOT the bill, means to pay it. |
| 15 | L+IF+T – If I had my Chambers I’d check to see if L is a std abbrev for “line”. IF is often “provided”. |
| 17 | C+OLD – I’m not going to indulge myself by suggesting that “Unfriendly Conservative” is a tautology and thus reveal my politics. |
| 18 | C+OPEN+HAGEN – C is indeed abbrev(“clubs”) in the context of bridge say. To “crack” the window means to OPEN it and I knew that Walter HAGEN played golf. |
| 21 | ANT BEAR – Kind of an aardvark that isn’t a bear at all but does like eating ants. |
| 22 | ADMIR(e)+A+L – Nelson (19D) is a good example thereof. |
| 23 | SCRATCH – double defs with unrelated etymologies and meanings, both of which are American in flavour. |
| 24 | O+REGANO – O for “duck” followed by (orange)*. The clue needs to be parsed as: “Herb used in cooking” is definition and “sour” is the anagrind. Momentarily misleading since “cooking” is probably number #3 on the list of top-40 anagrind hits. |
| 25 | CROSS (S)WORDS – I’ve heard that in some parts of the world there’s a type of puzzle called the CROSSWORD. |
Down
| 2 | RAN+GE – “Extremely” has cropped up several times recently as an indicator of the first and last letters (in this case of “GrotesquE”). |
| 3 | W+EA+R(IS)OME – I find this kind of complex wordplay somewhat WEARISOME since the surface seems forced. EA for “each”, IS for “one’s” and the whole thing is rather “tedious”. |
| 5 | VANISHING CREAM – cryptic definition for what makes you invisible. |
| 6 | RESPECT – hidden in “HampshiRE SPECTators” |
| 14 | FLOOR S+HOW – The wordplay floored me for a bit: because I couldn’t work out in what way being bewildered was floored. Interestingly virtually the same clue showed up in this week’s Times: “Nightclub entertainment baffles? In what way?” |
| 16 | CHA(MB+E)RS – Brit doctors are often MB, MO and once in a while even MD and DR! Sometimes CHAMBERS really just means “houses.” |
| 17 | CLASSIC – double definition: the Epsom Derby is one of the classic horse-races. At first, I misled myself on this because I decided that “remarkably” is an anagrind of “typical” and came up with clay-pit of which there are many in Derbyshire. Oh well. |
| 19 | NELSON – I had to look at a map to uncover NELSON, Lancashire. |
| 20 | VESTA+S – last clue this time: I don’t smoke obviously enough in England when I’m there to need Swan VESTA matches. A bit of overlap though here since both the matches and the goddess are VESTA. |
| 22 | A.M.O.U.R. – first letters of the phrase: “Annoy My Old Unmarried Relative” |