An in-bed solve, lasting perhaps 25 minutes.
ACROSS
1. R(AD)OME
4. S POKE N
8. PALL OR
9. SOLSTICE (it’s close)*
10. CO M MAN DAN T
11. HANK dd Hank Marvin of the Shadows fame?
12. AGRIBUSINESS (Russian gibes)*
15. UNDERGARMENT Anagram of German in ‘under t’; we took this to refer to t-shirt, but any other ideas are welcome
19. jazZ IN Concert
20. TOUCHSTONE dd he’s the fool in ‘As You Like It’, which is a fave of ours
22. C(A LAB)ASH It’s a gourd
23. L(O)ITER the American spelling of ‘litre’ is ‘liter’, hence ‘Californian’
24. E U(RE)K A
25. SO(UGH)T
DOWN
1. RE A SON
2. DI L EMMA
3. MORON reversal of ‘no rom’
5. POLITESSE (lose spite)*
6. KIT C HEN
7. NICENESS we’re not sure on this – CE is presumably ‘church’, with SS being ‘saints’. ‘Courtesy appropriate to church council town with saints’
9. S CARBO(n) ROUGH
13. RIGHT BANK dd
14. INDICATE (I dance it)*
16. EN CLAIR censorial minus ‘so’ as an anagram
17. T(IT)HING
18. IN TENT
21. HE(‘)LL O
Hi Handel
Re 7dn: NICENE refers to the Council of Nicaea in 325, an attempt to achieve consensus in the Christian church. It produced the Nicene Creed.
Thanks Eileen.
You’ve also inadvertently solved something I half-remembered from the nineties – on the Pavement album ‘Brighten the Corners’ there’s a photo of the band with ‘The Nicene Creeders’ written underneath it, must be a reference to said creed.
I found this quite a bit harder than Handel. Re UNDERGARMENT, I got this only near the end as definition was well concealed. I think it’s (German turned)*
That makes a lot more sense! Thanks
Did about 3/4 of it.12a,20a,23a and 22a struggled with