Tougher than usual from Phi, but all understood as one expects from experience from this top setter. Solving time, 37 mins.
* = anagram < = reverse
ACROSS
9 PULSATE Cunning as ‘salute’ looked like the definition (salute p first of policemen)*
10 STAUNCH Double definition
11 N (UCLEAR F) RE E Z ONE (careful)*
12 MOR (T) AL S IN
14 CIDER Hidden reversal
15 SP LODGE
16 M (ART I) AN
17 RUN ON cf Runyon
18 CORP(s) U LENT
23 CA (S SI) US (Is s)< Caus(e)
24 ALL EGRO cf egro
DOWN
1 E PONY M me<
2 BLOC First letters
3 CASE-HARDEN (search Dean)*
4 REFRESHER COURSE Clue of the puzzle for me
5 ASTRONOMER ROYAL
6 WA(s) KE(pt)
7 IN GOOD TIME beat (music)
8 SHEEP RUN (pure hens)*
13 RELI N QUI(p) SH
14 CORPUSCULE (cures couple)* less e
15 S (U R P) LICE r = rector
19 TAT TOO
21 HAIL “hale” = sound (healthy)
22 (s) URGE
REFRESHER COURSE “Clue of the puzzle for me”.
It may well be, but it would be interesting to see why it works. I’ve looked at it for ages and am completely at sea.
I thought 12A (You’ll be displaying ethics in repressing it, ultimately) and 15D (Vestment with piece cut off holding up around rector) were both excellent.
I couldn’t understand REFRESHER COURSE either until I looked up “refresher” in the dictionary which turns out to also mean a fee paid to a lawyer so I think it was a kind of double definition (one of which was a pun).
“REFRESHER” COURSE Yes, that’s how I saw it, but I might have been lucky, in that, though not a member of that distinguished profession, I had come across it – it’s a further (lower) fee, say,if a case goes on or is reconsidered.
I solved 16a even though I omitted the word ‘craft’ on parsing it. Thus I got A in MARTIN. It was only afterwards I realised my mistake. There can’t be many clues where that would work.
Colin