| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | hidden reversed in “BritiSH CASt” – Hans SACHS is a character in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg and, I was surprised to discover, an actual real life person. |
| 4 | KEW,IS in LIE – I really should have got KEW quicker than I did, given that I only 15 minutes away from it. |
| 8/10 | (ENSURE ACCIDENTAL VICTIM)* – CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. I wasn’t looking forward to working out an anagram of that length so it was lucky that I stumbled on the answer with a few letters filled in. |
| 18 | YES in E,TRAIN |
| 19 | [-t]EAK in CRY – took me a while to work out what was going on here and I nearly filled in “croaky” until I realised it wouldn’t work with “failing to open wood”. |
| 21/24 | POSITIVE DISCRIMINATION – always a relief to get really big answers filled in early on. |
| 25 | A,USE in NOUS |
| 26 | TRESS – almost filled in “steam” (because of head of steam, pressure etc) but held back until I got a couple of crossing letters. Had to think again when I had ????S. Quite a clever &lit clue: “What’s head lost from emotional pressure?” |
| Down | |
| 2 | CERTITUDE – with all the crossing letters in place I filled the answer in because it was the only thing I could see that fit. Just worked out that “moral behaviour” is “rectitude” so you just have to flip the first three letters. |
| 3 | SAUCE – the “next answer” (4D) is LOST CAUSE, which you could also write as (CAUSE)*. |
| 5 | KO,AN – this was new to me but easy to get from the wordplay. I’ll let Wikipedia explain it and mention that a famous KOAN concerns the sound of one hand clapping. |
| 9 | I,LT in MONKEYS,NES[-t] – MILTON KEYNES. Almost got into a pickle with this one as I thought I was looking for an anagram of “brat’s home” minus the “t”. |
| 14 | SUET,I in ONUS |
| 16 | (I BET SAILS)* – STABILISE. |
| 20 | [-n]ATIVE (reversed) |
| 22 | I,NAP,T – the last one I filled in, mainly because I thought I was suppposed to be looking for a word for consignment with the last letter missing. |
| 23 | F,IDO |