This was pretty neat, I thought. Mostly straightforward, but three clues held me up at the end. 8 minutes.
| Across | |
| 1 | Each partly remodelled like the original model (10) |
| ARCHETYPAL – Anagram (‘remodelled’) of EACH PARTLY | |
| 8 | Fight off concerning pounding (7) |
| REPULSE – RE (concerning) + PULSE (pounding) | |
| 9 | Like the Spanish Inquisitor-General perhaps ignoring his terror (5) |
| PANIC – HISPANIC without HIS | |
| 10 | What one needs to survive inundation sweeping Lima away (4) |
| FOOD – FLOOD minus L for Lima | |
| 11 | I appreciate what you’ve done shaking hanky out (5,3) |
| THANK YOU – Anagram (‘shaking’) of HANKY OUT | |
| 13 | Starry backing of some martial arts aficionado (6) |
| ASTRAL – reverse hidden word | |
| 14 | Sausage I’m unfortunately returning (6) |
| SALAMI – IM ALAS backwards | |
| 17 | Stomach eating last of your cooked rice and spice (8) |
| TURMERIC – TUM with [ |
|
| 19 | What causes destruction of half of east European capital (4) |
| PEST – Half of BUDAPEST | |
| 21 | Shape of Earth — not good (5) |
| ROUND – GROUND minus G | |
| 22 | Agreement plane needs to be shortened (7) |
| CONCORD – CONCORDE minus the E, which was only added because the French whined about it. | |
| 23 | Poor rowers hope for what Arab might provide (10) |
| HORSEPOWER – Anagram (‘poor’) of ROWERS HOPE. ‘Arab’ ALWAYS means ‘horse’ in crosswordland | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Censure over left’s understanding (7) |
| RAPPORT – RAP (censure) + PORT (left). My LOI. Came unstuck trying to make ‘reprove’ or ‘reproof’ work | |
| 3 | Tiller of hard wood (4) |
| HELM – H + ELM. Neat | |
| 4 | Suffer with gums and endlessly stagger around hospital (6) |
| TEETHE – TEETE[ |
|
| 5 | Briefly visit bird? That’s dandy (8) |
| POPINJAY – POP IN + JAY | |
| 6 | Gaunt’s new king installed in place (5) |
| LANKY – N (new) + K (king) inside LAY (place) | |
| 7 | A conservative, old-fashioned editor is familiar (10) |
| ACQUAINTED – A + C + QUAINT + ED. This was another that held me up, trying to make ‘accustomed’ fit. Should have spotted it earlier | |
| 8 | Obstinate about manufacturing site either side of river (10) |
| REFRACTORY – RE (about) + FACTORY outside R | |
| 12 | Perfume from seller south of Los Angeles (8) |
| LAVENDER – VENDER with LA to start with. ‘Vender’ is accepted US spelling apparently. | |
| 15 | Excellent American bridge partnership with a great deal for them (7) |
| AWESOME – A (American) + WE (West/East) + SOME, in the American sense of ‘you’ll have to go some to catch up’. This also held me up. | |
| 16 | Go round part of theatre (6) |
| CIRCLE – double definition | |
| 18 | Starched collar sounded uncomfortable to wear (5) |
| ROUGH – Sounds like RUFF | |
| 20 | Cancel party in support of United Nations (4) |
| UNDO – UN + DO | |
Very hard!
Lots unfinished
To compound my misery, I spent almost 2 hours on the 15 x 15 and got about 2/3.
I remain in a pit of despair over this. 3 hours today and nothing but disappointment. Just awful. The harder I try, the worse I get. 😡
Very difficult. AWESOME never came to me and even if did I feel my use of a thesaurus to find Popingjay would of meant I’d of been lying to myself if I’d called it anything other than a DNF. I do think if answer is going to be a word not in popular usage maybe the wordplay should be simpler than it was here. Maybe I’m just upset as was a good run of completions until now.