7 Middle-Asian kings find the alphabet (whichever way they take it in) hard (6)
8 Berlin denizens keep lime tree… (6)
9 …that’s contracted to a particular date (4)
10 Barbie model with bits of tin is hot here in Oz (8)
11 Spurs man on to get one, after everyone else (4)
12 Apostle target of Englishmen en bloc (4,4)
14 In private…honestly? (2,3,3)
16 Old poem descendant of Mohammed brought back (4)
18 One woman casually said another woman shortly is going somewhere in Canada (8)
21 Indian city where Greeks met, but failed to get round (4)
22 Distraught Lois left mad Bela Lugosi to the hors d’oeuvre (6)
23 Doctor priest’s spurious article (6)
Cryptic down
1 He desecrated a museum, the first in London (6)
2 Pretty hard, not hot, but tense place where Jonah did not make it (8)
3 Fish centre’s about to open (4)
4 Being divine is great (8)
5 Returned items of bread to send to Coventry (4)
6 Springy bedding in tavern
alcoves? (6)
12 A posh taj worn by Asa’s boy in the KJV (8)
13 One on a mission, a graduate’s after farming establishment subsidies at last (8)
15 Caught in denial? (6)
17 Exodus woman, on edge being a month in France totally set up (6)
19 We French have common sense… (4)
20 …sense being the crux of it! (4)
Quick across
7 Jeremiah’s secretary (6) 8 Lack of interest (6)
9 Egyptian cross (4)
10 Yorkshire city, the ‘wool capital of the world’ in the 19th century (8)
11 Clarified butter used in Indian cookery (4)
12 OT book about a cup bearer to Artaxerxes I (8)
14 Small furry aquatic monotreme of Australia and Tasmania (8)
16 Parcels of land (4)
18 Creative talent (8)
21 Female reproductive cell (4)
22 Henry ——, Jersey-born actor; latest incarnation of
Superman on the big screen (6)
23 Maker, deviser or repairer, especially as the second part of a combination word (6)
Quick down
1 Loin and leg of a quadruped (6)
2 Saint, the apostle of Northumbria (c 635-687) (8)
3 Son of Omri: captain of the Pequod (4)
4 High Priest who interrogated Jesus and became a persecutor of the first Christians (8)
5 Homeless child, especially one forsaken or orphaned (4)
6 Body of Islamic religious law (variant spelling) (6)
12 Son of Jacob and full brother of Dan (8)
13 Steward of Olivia’s house in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (8)
15 Lasso (6)
17 Overly-sensitive (6)
19 Flower: camera or eye part (4)
20 Two-masted sailing boat (4)
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