Solving time: 12’
Fastest solve for me ever – I think. Even managed to spell AUF WIEDERSEHEN correctly the first time. I recognized SHREVEPORT pretty quickly as well probably because it figured as a minor actor in the New Orleans debacle a couple of years ago. And “criminal” cropped up here again as an adjectival anagram indicator.
Across
| 1 | S(H,REVE)PORT – it’s in Louisiana (what’s left of it) and it’s rev(ever=always) in SPORT for “play”. |
| 11 | YESTERDAY – two meanings: I think of e.g. Cole Porter songs as “standards” but of course most Lennon-McCartney compositions qualify. |
| 12 | TEQUILA SUNRISE – (Qualities nurse)* – just the thing to have for breakfast on your Caribbean Club Med holiday. |
| 16 | GRENADE – enraged* — easy word to clue since lends itself to anagramification. Note how “criminal” plays the (non-nounal!) role of anagrind in the cryptic reading. |
| 19 | CATC[h]ALL – my 2nd to last clue: not particularly hard but, in general, subtraction clues tend to be more challenging: in this case, I wasn’t sure if it was L (for “left”) or H “hospital”) that was to be removed. |
| 21 | AUF WIEDERSEHEN – (In here, a few used)* — German au revoir. Fell at first glance for some reason. |
| 23 | SACRAMENT[o] – another American city. |
| 24 | LAPS,[orangead]E – incidentally also a homophone of LAPS… |
| 25 | SASH – hidden in “ArkanSAS (Harrison)” — I actually thought of “The Traveling Wilburys” when I saw this – probably unintended. |
Down
| 2 | R,ANGERS – ref. Glasgow RANGERS among others. Does Everyman have a soft spot for all things Scottish (e.g. certainly likes Sean Connery)? |
| 3 | VENTURE, CAPITAL – a double/cryptic def. Paris is just an example of a capital city – would have worked with any other I suppose (but wouldn’t have been as surprising perhaps since Paris isn’t really a center of hi-tech investment). |
| 4 | P.H.,YLLIS=rev(silly) – PH for “public house” (actually, local) tripped me up in another puzzle recently. |
| 8 | CLYDE,SDALE=leads* – the nice thing about this clue is that “straying carthorse” has one thinking about orchestras. |
| 9 | PENNY=our “girl”, IN-THE-SLOT=(thin stole)* – this must be ref. one-armed “bandits”, i.e. slot machines where one wastes all ones pennies and larger denominations. |
| 13 | SPY,GLASSES – “schooners” are usefully both drinking and sailing vessels. Both meanings hinted at in this clue. |
| 18 | ENDLESS – two meanings |
| 19 | CUR,ATOR=rev(rota=”cycle”) – my last clue. I couldn’t stop thinking about a gamekeeper which I’m sure was the setter’s intent. |
| 20 | A,DELPHI=(I’d help)* – well-known West End theatre. |
| 22 | MERE – two meanings |