A pleasant and fairly quick solve over a pint in our local. We were pleased to get both 8ac and 23ac, which were words and phrases we did know, but had to root around in the back of our minds for.
ACROSS
1. TUNIC ‘Cnut’ reversed with ‘i’ for island inside
4. B(RICK)RED
8. PACHYDERMATOUS (supremacy had to)* means ‘thick-skinned’
9. CAR VERY
10. TRI(VI)A(l)
12. LOG(O)S
14. PRIS(TIN)E
16. TRADE GAP cryptic definition
18. MAN I C
20. B(EH)OLD
21. CARDIAC ‘card’, the AI (tiptop) reversed, then ‘c’
23. DOG IN THE MANGER (hardening got me)*
24. WET NURSE ‘unrest’ anagramised inside ‘we’
25. D(u)RESS
DOWN
1. TOPICALITY ‘top’ (chief), ‘IC’ for ‘in charge’ and then ‘Italy’ anagramised
2. veNICE Really
3. CO Y NESS don’t quite understand why ‘ness’ is ‘to get involved’
4. BYE-BYE sounds like ‘by by’
5. I’M MATURE reference to Victor Mature
6. KITTIES dd
7. E(R.U.)DITION
11. PEACE CORPS (ace coppers)*
13. GRACE NOTE ‘girl’ is Grace, ‘see’ is note
15. MANDATER ‘man’ then ‘re tad’ reversed
17. E MOTION
18. MERMAID (dream I’m)*
19. AC C(ED)E
22. IN GLE(n)
I think that the ‘get involved’ in 3 down relates to the Y = yen getting involved ie cryptically being contained in company head ie CO NESS.
Ah, that’ll be it. It was the head=ness that stumped us, despite having looked the word up recently.
15ac is MANDATOR – the OR coming from Other Ranks – “other soldiers”.
Sorry meant 15dn!
can you explain 20across more fully
Uncle Yap, re 20ac: “Observe what’s striking on the outside” I parsed as: BEHOLD: “what”(?) EH(?) inserted in “striking” BOLD.
Raced ahead then struggled with 13d and 15d.20a also but did the rest.Pleased!