Apologies – I wrote this up last week and then forgot to publish it.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 9 | (CULT AWARE)* – CATERWAUL. I liked “heated call” as the definition. |
| 11 | (ON ISLAM)* – OSMANLI |
| 12/15 | NOTHING LIKE THE SUN – 22a’s brilliant novel (more of a fictional biography really) about Shakespeare’s love life. The title is from Shakespeare’s sonnet “My mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun”. |
| 14 | BRIDE,WELL – London’s first “house of correction”. |
| 16 | (THINK THAT GROCER)* – ON THE RIGHT TRACK. |
| 19 | KIN,KIN,E,SS – I thought this was a great clue with a nice surface reading and a clever bit of deception in “closer to some” for E. |
| 21 | HEART – “earth” with the H moved to the front. |
| 22 | URGES in BS – “nonsense” is B[ull]S[hit]. A reference to the marvellous Anthony BURGESS. |
| 23 | S,X in (I FEEL)* – great &lit for SEX LIFE. |
| 24 | RE,A,DS – DS (in music notation) stands for Dal Segno, literally “from the sign”. I think I only knew this because it appeared in a recent puzzle, somewhere. |
| 25 | MP,MP in (IN OUR)* – IMPROMPTU. Very cleverly worded clue for an unpromising looking word. |
| Down | |
| 1/3 | A CLOCKWORK ORANGE – 22a’s novel and later an infamous film by Stanley Kubrick. |
| 4 | hidden in “bacK A LIttle” – in Hinduism, KALI and Durga are manifestations of the Mother Goddess Devi. |
| 5 | L in BAN,DISHES |
| 7 | VENI,CE – a reference to “veni, vedi, vici”. |
| 17 | PI in (SLEEPY)* – EPILEPSY. |
| 18 | NIP in A GAPE – AGANIPPE is a fountain and the naiad associated with it. |
| 20 | R in NO WAY – not sure I understand the definition: “Taters here”. |
| 21 | H,X in OT,ON – HOXTON is an achingly trendy area of East London, popular with media types. |
20d, Taters are Norwegian gypsies.