The usual collection from Quixote here, with the three long answers all anagrams, as often seems to be the case. 14 and 18 down were both new words to us.
ACROSS
5. VEGETABLE KNIFE (baking, eve felt)* plus an ‘e’ from ‘with energy being saved’
9. SU (B UR) B IA< which is supposed to convey ‘b’ for British, then ‘Ur’ for old city with ‘A1 BUS’ reversed around it
10. I’M PORT definition here is ‘significance will become clear’, which isn’t all that clear to us. Import can mean ‘significant’, but there’s doubtless a finer point being made here
11. HUM MOCK is a hill, defined as ‘rising’
12. F ARROW
13. CAT-O-NINE-TAILS (not in a castle I)
16. JO JOB A clever, as ‘little woman’ references Jo March from ‘Little Women’ and is also a short (or little) woman’s name. Doubtless this has been used plenty of times before, but we liked it all the same
19. W RAPPER
21. PI(ERR)E ‘to make a mistake’ = to err
22. IN STANCE
23. GRASP THE NETTLE (get three plants)* nice semi-&lit
DOWN
1. A.V. OUCH authorised version
2. S TUB BORNe born, bourne and borne are familiar confusables
3. RELIEF dd
4. SNIPE R
6. GOURd MET
7. BLACK-AND-WHITE (watchable kind)*
8. FUR IOUS good surface reading here, with its evocation of angry PETRA supporters
13. C ROSIER our penultimate one in, it’s a staff carried by high-ranking church types
14. TRANSKEI (treks in a)* our last one in, which we had to look up to verify. It meant an area set aside for a particular ethnicity in South Aftica
15. IMP L ANT 50=L
17. ONRUSH (our NHS)*
18. A VEST A the primary sacred texts of Zoroastrianism. Didn’t know the word, but gettable from the wordplay
20. ROCKER dd
Thanks for the blog, Handel. In IMPORT I think ‘will become clear’ is a bit like a link word, just saying IMPORT is the answer.
Minor point, re 14D, I think TRANSKEI is the name of an actual place. Good, accessible, puzzle as always from Quixote.
Thanks Handel and Quixote. Nicely done.
Quite straightforward.
1D AVOUCH I’m not sure whether A.V. = “authorised version” for this instance (could be a typo). The online clue reads “Affirm with a very short cry indicating pain” which I read as A V(ery) OUCH.