Independent on Sunday 1086: Quixote

Both straightforward and sound, as usual. 12a gets a mention as my favourite clue this week.

Across
1	STOP	‘Pots’ = vessels, reversed
6	INCREMENT	*(CERT[a]IN); MEN = workers
10	STONED	ONE; D = died; at the side of ST = street
11	MINSTERS	ST = saint (someone really good); MINERS = workers with dirty jobs (I’ll let the miners speak for themselves)
12	COLLECTIVE NOUN	A charm of goldfinches is the usual collective noun for them. Nice clue.
14	THEORETICIANS	*(Creationists he)
16	ALL-IN WRESTLING	ALL IN = exhausted; W = wife; REST = take it easy; LING = heather (an evergreen in crossword clues as well as in botanical terms)
19	PIMIENTO	*(ITEM IN PO)
21	OPPOSE	OP = work; POSE = sit
22	GUERRILLA	*(A GIRL WITH LURE)
23	TIER	TI[l]ER. Tiers are up there with ling in crossword clues.

Down
1	STATIC	Double definition — static electricity; stationary
2	SPINAL	PIN = fix; SAL = Sarah. SAL is not in PIN; on the contrary, PIN is in SAL. ‘Backbone’s’ (possessive) is the definition.
3	MIDDLEBROW	*(LIBDEM WORD). Well spotted anagram.
4	TERN	[s]TERN = rear end without its first letter
7	COME TO THE BOIL	Double definition — a boil, or abscess, is a particularly nasty spot; to come to the boil is to reach a critical state.
8	ESTONIA	EST = ‘is’ in French; O = old; NI = Northern Ireland, a province; A.
9	TURN-UPS	Double definition — some trousers have these; a turn-up for the books is an unexpected, usually pleasant, occurrence.
13	VOCATIONAL	*(VATICAN LOO). ’Nuff said.
14	TELLING	Double definition — meaningful; the counting of votes (or, outside the polling station, declared voting intentions)
15	EDIFICE	ED = man; IF = poem by Rudyard Kipling; I = one; CE = Church of England
17	IMPUTE	IMP = troublemaker; [c]UTE. The definition is ‘attribute’ as a verb.
18	GASKET	ASK = request; GET = obtain. A gasket is a kind of seal — ‘a canvas band used to bind the sails to the yards when furled; a strip of tow, etc for packing a piston, etc; a layer of packing material, esp a flat sheet of asbestos compound, sometimes between thin copper sheets, used for making gas-tight joints between engine cylinders and heads, etc.’
20	NORM	NO Royal Marines, an RM being known as a ‘jolly’

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