Given the number of black squares in the grid and the lack of difficulty in this puzzle, I was expecting there to be a theme, but, if it’s there, I can’t find it.
This only took me about 6 minutes to solve, although I have to admit that I’m not sure about 1dn.
ACROSS
4,6 COMMON OR GARDEN
9 SITCOM – short for “situation comedy”, so “place” makes the clue a bit cryptic
10 ASPIRANT – (partisan)*
11 LEGERDEMAIN (Germa(n) leader)*
18 RIGHT-WINGER – depending on the football ground you are at, wingers may be very close to the crowd, ie supporters
23 PE(A-HE)N
25 PLAIN AND SIMPLE – not terribly cryptic
DOWN
1 HONOUR – though not sure why
2 CRYSTAL SET – (tactless)* around RY – “what links stations” – the best clue in the puzzle. A crystal set was an early radio receiver using a crystal detector.
3 SALIENCE – LIEN in (case)*
5 M.I.T.-1-GATE – MIT being Massachussetts Institute of Technology, which I think is a University rather than a college?
12 ENG(AGE-MEN)(outfi)T
13 KINGSHIP
14 FLORENCE – where Michelangelo’s statue of David is situated
19 IRE-NIC(k)
21 F-ETA – another good clue
1D is a bit of mystery to me as well.
5D: in the US universtiies are invariably referred to as colleges — there is no real equivalent of the Brit post-sixth-form college so… I think this was the right choice.
14D: nice deception given that Jerusalem is often referred to as the “City of [King] David”
The use of college to mean university is fairly standard in the UK too. It’s often used in this way colloquially, for instance I would say that I went to college in Manchester. It gets a bit complicated when discussing a collegiate university such as Oxford, Cambridge and to a lesser extent Durham where college has a more specific meaning.
Colin
I thought of SITCOM and HONOUR but wasn’t convinced enough by either to fill them in. Honour can be a girl’s name, and I suppose there must be circumstances in which it can be used to address a queen, though I thought ‘honour’ was for judges and ‘highness’ or ‘majesty’ for queens.
Re: Honour: In a deck (pack as the Brits say) of cards, the Jack, Queen and King are termed honour cards.
This term is common in the game of bridge. I’m not sure about other card games.
I thought this was a “mini-theme-about-no-theme” – COMMON OR GARDEN along the top, NOTHING SPECIAL across the middle, and PLAIN AND SIMPLE along the bottom.
Honours: I thought the trmup A and 10 counted as honours too. Like some other bridge lingo, it’s an idea inherited from whist (though I think only A K Q J are honours in whist). Other trick-taking games have various terms for high trumps, liek ‘bowers’ and ‘matadors’.