QC 2536 by Orpheus

Lift and separate, “soft” does not go with the fruit. A soft pear is not a good pear.

Adding “sci-fi” is a bit superfluous, as ET is often clued by just “film”. And pedants can discuss if it is really a sci-fi film or not.

Not eaten Sago pudding since primary school, along with semolina and tapioca.

Those eight states which start with M can be tricky to sort out. The battleship USS Missouri, where the Japanese surrender was signed, was called The Mighty MO.

Hoard is an old word for a fence or barrier, bills and posters were stuck to them, and so advertising HOARDING.

This usage of PLUG, to aggressively promote, is surprisingly old, from 1909.

Very short anagram and indicator, makes it hard to spot.

I’d not heard of this word until a recent news article about Kew Gardens HERBARIA moving to (gasp!) Reading.

GANG is Scots slang for to go, often in the participle “gannin’ “. OED suppliers usual quotes from Beowulf and Burns. Don’t hear it much in Guildford.

Not a very common expression, and ROSE & PAT are just random women’s names. It comes from Hamlet, when Ophelia responds to Laertes

Like a puff’ d and reckless libertine,
Himself the PRIMROSE PATH of dalliance treads,
And reaks not his own rede.

“Sign” can often be a Zodiac sign, as can “house”, one to look out for.

Chequers is a grand country house in Bucks given to The Nation in 1917, because a new generation of Prime Ministers were not aristocrats and might not have a country estate for entertaining.