Cryptic crossword No 873

Good fun Guava, thanks, and an impressive amount of ingenuity! 22A is a brilliant find to go into the same puzzle as the audacious 1D. Particularly liked: 6A, 11A, 18A, 4D, 8D and 17D. Spoilers...

Nice one, Guava. With one obvious exception - for which you are forgiven (!) - a nice set of tightly worded clues and plenty of fun. My favourites included: 5a, 6a (no coincidence that both Coot and I ticked this one!),18a, 22a, 4d, 8d, 15d and 17d (lol). Spoilers in Reply. Thanks. PM

1d is awesome. I guessed it from the definition/numeration and clocked a big overlap of letters between first and second half of clue. Did I then spends the hours reconciling the two sides as you must have done? Er, no.... I always like clues such as 14d, 22a and 13a; it's a shame we don't know any words with xx in the middle, as I agree with Coot it doesn't quite play out (and also on the missing prepositions). 6a, 3d, 5d, 17d and the BBC-topical 8d were other favourites. Top stuff.

Fabulous work, great fun. The two most audacious ones (1d and 13a) I got from helpful definitions and needed your notes to parse, but both raised a grin. Loved 5d, 17d, 14d and 11a. A spoilery observation follows… thanks again!

A fun puzzle with really imaginative clues, though I didn't really come close to solving 1D or 13A. Great find for an anagram in 8D, enjoyed 4D and 18A too.

That was a delight. Favourites were 13a, 22a, 17d and the quite brilliant 1d. Spoilery comments in reply

Deleted

Thanks Guava, great fun. Favourites 5a, 13a, 5d, 8d & of course 17d! Spoilers ...

That was great fun Guava, packed with creativity and wit. I've been dipping in and out to solve this and appreciated tons of amusing PDs along the way, with lots of favourites including 5a (very neat), 6a (neat), 10a (nice assembly), 13a (good fun), 22a (lovely stuff), 1d (appreciate the effort this must've taken but have to admit I didn't stick the parse!), 5d (nice), 8d (clean) and 17d (neat) - thanks for the puzzle!