Quick Cryptic No 2814 by Orpheus

As I expect many other people have also found, “Hood Poet” is the fourth studio album by American rapper Polo G. (Wikipedia) However, I’m reasonably sure that Orpheus was referring to Thomas Hood (1799-1845).  Nope, I’d never heard of him either.

That’s the tangent function from trigonometry: opposite over adjacent according to SOHCAHTOA, which has never quite left my head.

Only the motorway is reversed. I too wondered if “IMA” was a word.

Very sneaky!

For the longest time, I was convinced – convinced, I tell you – that this couldn’t possibly be KITTEN because it was clearly an anagram of “in Kent”. I felt so smug about all the people who would just be bunging in KITTEN without properly counting the letters. What is it they say about pride and falls?

To be honest, I’d always thought of dykes as the opposite of trenches: they are built up while trenches are dug down. Turn on “safe search” before checking. 🙂

I nearly convinced myself that a VERT was the name for one of those fancy flying formations in displays done by the likes of the Red Arrows.

I had faintly heard of the Battle of Lepanto. But Lepanto as a port – nope. Didn’t help that it doesn’t appear in Wikipedia’s “List of Greek ports” page either.

That’s the verb sense of ‘bar’. I wasn’t 100% sure there was a Scottish town called Banff, but I reasoned that the Banff in Canada could well be named after another instance. And so it was.

Hmm. I’m OK with “over” being a synonym for “about”. “Let’s talk about it” and “let’s talk it over” mean the same thing – the word order shifts, but I think that works. Where I have a problem with this clue is that I have never heard of the word. If I had avoided something by jumping over it, I would have “leapt over the [fallen chair, whatever]”. I can’t imagine a circumstance where I would use the word “overleapt”, even though it’s obvious what it means.

American poet (1819 – 1892). I had heard of him, but the answer was biffed and then parsed.

Rt for “right” persists in “The Rt Hon <insert random MP here>”.

This is such a neat clue.

Another beauty of a clue. Sadly, by the time I got to this stage, the bludgeoning was beginning to tell and I didn’t appreciate it at the time.

I couldn’t get past Washington Irving for the longest time: Washington is even a capital!

An awn is a spiky seed, like many grasses have, designed specifically to get caught in socks.

A gar is a type of fish in North America, long and skinny with sharp teeth. I think the word “here” is superfluous, but there could be something clever going on that I’ve just missed.