Sorry this is late — I completely forgot. A pretty nice puzzle with a couple of clues that I wouldn’t have been surprised to have enountered in an Araucaria: e.g. 22D and 23D both of which I enjoyed, even 9A and 6D.
Across
| 9 | IRON=”Brand”, CROSS=”X” |
| 12 | OUTDO,OR – ref. OUTDOOR sports. |
| 13 | IS,LET – def is “a bit of land”. |
| 14 | THIN ON TOP – one of the few CDs. |
| 16 | HOW GOES THE ENEMY? – OK, another one. The ENEMY we all share: namely, time. Another way of asking what time it is. |
| 21 | MOO=”low”,CH |
| 24 | ELEMI – hidden rev in “tIME LEft”. A familiar crossword word for a kind of fragrant oil. |
Down
| 1 | KINGFISHER – (F, shrieking)* |
| 2 | CO(LES)LAW – LES is “the” in French. |
| 4 | GOLF – rev(flog=beat). A common cryptical reversal. |
| 6 | KNOTHOLE=”not whole” – and “deal” is wood in this context. |
| 8 | SLUR – two meanings with a nicely constructed and smooth surface. |
| 14 | TEST DRIVES – two meanings: with “runs” actually referring to drives in your car. |
| 15 | PSYCHOLOGY – nice CD. Wasn’t obvious to me at first. I suppose if you saw it immediately you’d think less of it: “Subject for those who have the mind to study”. |
| 20 | N[otts],AILED – “caught” by the fuzz for instance. |
| 21 | M,A,LI(C)E – M is “many” (a thousand) and C for “caught”. Slightly unfortunate that “caught” showed up in two consecutive clues. |
| 22 | C,OED – a (female) student and OED is our dictionary. Nice clue. Third consecutive appearance of C for “caught”. No longer unfortunate, perhaps a theme! |
| 23 | PUPA=rev(A PUP) – another nice clue: baby animals up or down. |
Am I the only person never to have heard the phrase ‘How goes the enemy’?
I enjoyed the crossword, but I must say that I had never come across the expression ‘How goes the enemy?’ before and had to look it up to make sure I had completed 16A correctly. Has anyone encountered this phrase in real life (as opposed to Brewer’s Dictionary)?
Google “how goes the enemy” finds several references. I didn’t know it.
Sorry, I thought this a well-known phrase – perhaps it is now only used by us oldies – I did check that it was in Chambers before using it.