I hope that you enjoyed this as much as I did.
Across
1 Rush mats coming back deep woven (8)
STAMPEDE – MATS reversed (coming back) with an anagram of (woven) [DEEP]
5 Cry out when there’s no oxygen close (4)
SHUT – SH{o}UT – cry out without the ‘o’ for oxygen
8 One leaving uniform edition not fully developed (8)
UNFORMED – Hidden in UN{i}FORM ED{ition} after taking out the I (one leaving)
9 Cautious of danger of route across river (4)
WARY – Route gives WAY across (with) R{iver} inside
11 Stomach upset from endless cold ice (5)
COLIC – COL{d} IC{e} – take the ends off (endless) cold ice
12 One with no illusions about a catalogue (7)
REALIST – About gives RE, a gives A and the catalogue is a LIST
13 Common weed bug (6)
NETTLE – Double definition, the first a stinger, the second to get up someone’s nose
15 Inhibition how to end a phone call (4,2)
HANG UP – Another double definition, a HANG UP being both an inhibition and a way to end a call
18 A diner’s ordered fish (7)
SARDINE – Anagram of [A DINERS] with ‘ordered’ as the anagrind
19 English might, needing to lose mass for racing boat (5)
EIGHT – E{nglish} and {m}IGHT, after the M{ass} has been removed. An EIGHT is a common name for a rowing boat with eight oars, as used recently in the Oxford v Cambridge boat race, although with a cox installed, it could more properly be referred to as a NINE
21 Certainly, old girl (4)
OKAY – O{kay} and KAY is the girl being looked for
22 Be partial to sage just the same (8)
LIKEWISE – To LIKE is to be partial to, and WISE is sage
23 In favour of Mahler’s First for concert (4)
PROM – ‘In favour of’ gives PRO and Mahler’s first (letter) is M
24 SHAPE military headquarters (8)
PENTAGON – another double definition, a PENTAGON being both a shape and the name given to the headquarters building for the US armed forces. The capitalisation of SHAPE is designed to misdirect you to think of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe which goes by that acronym
Down
1 Very little food served in a tureen – swindle (7)
SOUPCON – My last one in (LOI). The food served in a tureen is of course SOUP, and swindle gives CON. Soupcon (usually with a little tail hanging under the C, which I can’t manage here) is French for suspicion, and usually means a hardly perceptible quantity, a dash.
2 Legitimate banning learner driver that’s very bad (5)
AWFUL – LAWFUL is legitimate, which gives the answer when L for learner driver is removed
3 Left is holding thinning out operation which blocks entrants (10)
PORTCULLIS – Left is PORT, is is IS, and squeezed between them is CULL, the transitive verb that means to thin out (usually a population of over-abundant animals)
4 Depressing hearing organ in Derby in odd places (6)
DREARY – Hearing organ is EAR and this sits in the middle of D{e}R{b}Y (odd letters of the midlands town)
6 Disliking importing energy – something needed in winter (7)
HEATING – Disliking leads to HATING, importing E{nergy}
7 Meeting of lovers in country station (5)
TRYST – Hidden answer clue in {coun}TRY ST{ation}
10 Handling crew a long time before people start to travel (10)
MANAGEMENT – Crew is to MAN, a long time is an AGE, people is MEN and start to T{ravel} means the first letter of the word
14 Severe weather is too darn bad (7)
TORNADO – Nice simple anagram with ‘bad’ being the anagrind and [TOO DARN] providing the anagrist
16 Talk quickly with new example to be followed (7)
PATTERN – To talk quickly is to PATTER on, and N{ew} provides the N
17 Very much want European father to support daughter (6)
DESIRE – D{aughter} supported by (on top of) E{uropean} SIRE (father)
18 Sailing boat needs only small areas of water to turn (5)
SLOOP – small areas of water are POOLS which are turned (reversed) to give the name of the light boat or single-masted vessel
20 Travelling right away from Goring (5)
GOING – Do as instructed and take R{ight} away from the name of the place in West Sussex (note other places called Goring are available)
Thank you blogger and Joker.
All done and dusted in 8.25 mins.
Fine Blog from Mr. Rotter (as usual) and now available in an easily readable sans-serif typeface at a decent size for us Oldies!
Nearly put in STAN CULLIS instead of PORTCULLIS – remember him!? Any Wolves fans hereabouts?
More of a Bill Nicholson and Danny Blanchflower man myself though.
After that all went in smoothly and quickly. LOI was 18a because it was the last clue I read.
I was on the wavelength and finished in 11 minutes.
Another very enjoyable Joker puzzle. David
For management, I would have thought crew = men.
Quite glad to get soupcon as I didn’t know tureen.
COD 1d.
Seem to be quite a few clues lately with definitions with first letters knocked off eg. 2dn and “AWFUL”
COD for me was 3dn and PORTCULLIS.
DR31
On a pedantic note Rotter, I don’t think 8ac is a hidden, as there’s no indicator. (Funnily enough “not fully developed” could serve as a hidden indicator, but then it would be doing double duty). So I think the wordplay is just UNFORM (I leaving uniform) + ED (edition).