…. hardly ! It’s an Araucaria after all.
Interim version of the solutions – feel free to help me out with the left side of the puzzle – managed to crack the RHS and the theme in a spare 30 minutes over breakfast. Otherwise I’ll be back at lunchtime to finish it off.
ACROSS
6 DUNDEE : Bonny Dundee. Scots folk hero that 90% of Scots claim to be related to
9 IMP-A-LA : “A La” means in the style of. Although it also sounds dangerously like a name I should be using carefully these days. Thank you for not stoning me.
10 TAKE BACK
12 TOASTED TEA : (TO EAT DATES)* It was the only anagram I could find – which gifted me the theme.
13 PROFIT-E-ROLE : Profit =Return
23 BATTEN-BURG : Batten = eat in a big fast way Burg = (Grub) <
25 CAR-ROT
DOWN
3 HUCK-STER : Huck(leberry) Finn and (rest)*
4 ODD-BOD
7 ECCLES : Short for “Ecclesiastes” or “Ecclesiastical”
8 STRAIT-LACED : (ARTIST)* + laced (into a corset)
15 LOBSTERS
17 ARREST = (SARTRE)*
20 TUBMAN = President of Liberia for a long time not so recently
Across
5 sponge – double definition
11 seed
18 pontefract – pact with anag of ‘for ten’
19 megabyte – me ga(by)te
24 parkin – northern recipe ginger cake eaten on november 5th
Down
1 colander – co land er
2 aghast – ag haste(e)
5 simnel – ?
14 fifty six – 14 qradupled
18 bo peep – b(op)eep
19 tea urn – anag
5d Lambert Simnel was a pretender to the throne in the fifteenth century
David, the name Simnel has stirred up memories from 50 years ago. Was Perkin Warbeck also involved?
Judy
The only connection between Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck is a coincidence of dates. They were both pretenders to the crown of Henry VII – and both fakes.
Bonnie Dundee hit me straight away, so I had the cake theme. Thanks, David, for the explanation of Simnel.
I seem to remember that there was a Listener puzzle a few years back which had pretenders as its theme. Remembering the Simnel/cake connection from that puzzle helped me out quite a lot with the NW corner on this one!
Ali
23ac: Chambers (English Dictionary, 1988) spells this Battenberg. The older Chambers 20th Century doesn’t have it at all. Maybe the newest Chambers, which I hate, has the alternate spelling used by Araucaria.
23ac: The Battenburg spelling can be found on Google or Chambers on-line. Sorry.
4D “odd bod” had me stumped. I get that it rhymes, but is this a common phrase or name?
14D ” 14 ….. quadrupled predicament if Tyson’s not performing in it (5-3) ”
Bernie @1 gave the answer, but it made no sense to me at first. I assume “….quadrupled” is meant to tell you to refer back to the clue number “14” and then quadruple it. Then we have
f(if Tys)ix comes from (“if Tyson” minus ‘on’ (performing) inside a ‘fix’ (predicament).