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1. Pounds distributed: 59? Could be SPONDULIX (anag. + LIX, & lit.)
A tidy & lit. with
just the right amount of information to provide (appropriately) a small penny-drop.
11. News broadcasters en—— were of use to French writers once? CRIERS ((en)criers (Fr.)) ‘L’encrier’ (inkwell) wasn’t part of the standard school French
lexicon even in Dr Watson’s day, when dictation was more likely to be taken
with le bic than
le stylo. Azed’s surface reading makes little sense once the blank is
filled, but the clue works well enough cryptically.
15. Bird returns, clutching part of her
underwear – and shades
UMBRAE (bra in emu, rev.) Now there’s a sentence you wouldn’t see
anywhere but a crossword nowadays.
16. Twinkling gays? They’re often in evidence
at kirk funerals MOURNINGS (mo urnings) If you’re unfamiliar with
‘urning’ as a term for a gay man (OED cites it as an
1864 coinage last quoted in 1909) then this clue isn’t easy to parse. ‘Mo’ means
moment’, and ‘mournings’ itself is a Scottish term
for funeral dress.
29. Shorebird, English, first to last showing
no sign of age? UNLINED (d to end in
dunlin E) The dunlin is literally (as well as
littorally) one of the ‘small brown bird’ species
beloved of ornithologists. Its name means ‘small and brown’.
30. Head of showbiz gang? That’s you, right now READER (2 mngs.)
The second sentence should give enough away, but there’s a trap here for
solvers who’ve not come across the Gang
Show impresario Ralph
Reader before, and might make a guess at LEADER.
2. Bulldog accompanies one to forage for
food locally PROG (2 mngs.) In the peculiar world of Oxford University
slang, a bulldog is the attendant of a proctor or prog,
who presumably undertook the physical enforcement of college rules. ‘Prog’ also means to poke about in dialect use.
9. Deploying this initially, police range in
it? DRAGNET (anag.
in d, t, & lit.) The
cryptic reading leads a little awkwardly to the &
lit. definition, though that itself is quite precise. ‘Police’
in the sense of ‘control’ is a rarely-used anagram indicator.
10. Love of the French yields such lyrical efforts ODES (0 des) A much more fluent
surface than the previous clue.
18. Strong creature that, but old one, stressed
finally OXYTONE
(ox yt one) The
solution looks like something you’d use to clean a drain, but it’s an adjective
meaning ‘stressed on the final syllable’, which makes it heterological.
20. Nice summer drawn in, cut short, is wavering TEETERS (été (Fr.) in ters(e)) Ah, yes, it’s a while
since Dr Watson’s seen Nice referenced in this way, but the old puns are often
the most welcome.
21. Hals represented current monarch to give a
stony face ASHLER
(anag. + ER) A
neat allusion to Frans Hals’ Laughing
Cavalier. The solution is an alternative spelling of the more common ‘ashlar’.
22. One’s shot small part with actor/model in it PELLET (Elle in
pt.)
The actor/model in question is, Dr Watson assumes, Elle Macpherson, aka ‘The
Body’.
26. What happens when name’s forgotten? Ask! EVET (eve(n)t) Azed rounds off
with a beautifully misleading surface that exploits Chambers’s
second entry for ‘ask’. It means a newt, so now you don’t have to.
Other solutions:
Across: 13. ONBOARD (anag.
+ Rd.); 14. ROMCOM
(MC in room); 17.
TORTOISE PLANT (anag.; see elephant’s-foot in C.); 23. HYPERSTHENITE (hype + r + then in site); 24. STEAM-HAUL (anag.);
27. CORBEL (orb in cel(l)); 28. CLEEVE (hidden); 31. DRIFT NETS (anag.).
Down: 1. SCRITCH (crit. in Sch.); 3. NECKTIE (ne + anag. less r); 4. DROMOS (d. + anag.); 5. LOCUS STANDI (cuss
in lot + and I); 6.
INURED (Uni, rev. + red); 7. LOBI (lob + I); 8. CARNALISED (anag.); 12. IMPROPERLY; 19. LINNEAN (inn in
lean); 24. SCUM
(comp. anag. & lit.); 25. ABIB (a bib).