I found this very tough today. Or at least, I made very heavy weather of it - I threw in the towel at the 25 minute mark with 1d and 9ac unanswered, which is my worst performance in... well, as long as I can remember (which perhaps isn't all that long). The top half was the main sticking point, where I didn't get any of the acrosses on the first run through. A fair bit of time was spent, via an inability to count, trying the wrong anagram fodder for 1ac, and I only realised my mistake when the G in 2d finally presented itself. A fair bit of time was also spent on 10ac, and 4d, and even 6d, not to mention the unanswered ones. Those "-gh" words always get me, dammit! Oh well, after what's been a pretty good solving week so far, I will say thanks to Teazel for a (somewhat) enjoyable confidence check, although one that I intend to quickly forget.
| Across | |
| 1 | Unfulfilled person’s theme: behaving badly (5-4-4) |
| MIGHT-HAVE-BEEN - anagram (badly) of THEME BEHAVING. Not "Person's theme", which contains a mess of rent hopes and other vaguely forlorn sounding things that might be hyphenated. | |
| 8 | Wife perhaps a Tory type (7) |
| CONSORT - CON (Tory) SORT (type) | |
| 9 | In part of body, temperature raised (5) |
| THIGH - T(emperature) HIGH (raised). | |
| 10 | Join small military unit and study deeply (2,4,6) |
| GO INTO DETAIL - GO INTO (join) DETAIL (small military unit) | |
| 12 | Indifference in a way unknown (6) |
| APATHY - A PATH (a way) Y (unknown) | |
| 14 | Become aware of us, say, in survey (6) |
| CENSUS - say/speak SENSE US (become aware of us) | |
| 17 | Girl with one sign for scientist (7) |
| GALILEO - GAL (girl) with I LEO (one, sign) | |
| 19 | Bread is mine? Cheers! (5) |
| PITTA - PIT (mine) TA (cheers) | |
| 20 | This, initially very infectious, renders us sick? (5) |
| VIRUS - initial letters of very infectious, renders us sick | |
| 21 | Pirate’s rough appearance remarked on (7) |
| CORSAIR - remarked on/spoken COARSE AIR (rough appearance) | |
| 22 | Come back to harvest fruit (8) |
| REAPPEAR - REAP (harvest) PEAR (fruit) | |
| 23 | Small child makes slide (4) |
| SKID - S(mall) KID (child) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Where to find brass, they say, in Scottish island (4) |
| MUCK - Double definition: the saying "where there's muck there's brass" (i.e., there's money in unwholesome/undesirable activities) was beyond my radar today, as was the Scottish island. Population "around" 27, according to Wikipedia, which does indeed sound open to fluctuation. | |
| 2 | Day in lagoon, floating around in this? (7) |
| GONDOLA - anagram (floating) of LAGOON, insert D(ay) | |
| 3 | Tree thriving initially on S American cape (5) |
| THORN - T (thriving, initially) on HORN (S American cape) | |
| 4 | Battle? Start shooting! (6) |
| ACTION - A nice double definition: the first military, the second cinematic. | |
| 5 | More pretexts devised for dangerous pastime (7,5) |
| EXTREME SPORT - anagram (devised) of MORE PRETEXTS | |
| 6 | Girl in the morning leaving the US (5) |
| ERICA - AMERICA (US) losing AM (morning). I had a blank at this for some reason. | |
| 7 | Not locking any cargo area leads to such wrestling? (2-5-6) |
| NO-HOLDS-BARRED - If no cargo areas were locked, no holds would be barred. | |
| 11 | Project for the morning after? (8) |
| HANGOVER - to project = to overhang = to hang over - not quite a double definition as "hang over" would have to be two words. | |
| 13 | Goes to ground, so far ahead in golf match? (5,2) |
| HOLES UP - another double definition. | |
| 15 | Place somewhat behind in disappointment (7) |
| SETBACK - another nearly-but-not-quite double definition, for the same reason as 11d. | |
| 16 | Helped yourself to tea? Caught you! (6) |
| GOTCHA - Got cha = got tea. | |
| 18 | Caterpillar, for example, in popular variety (5) |
| LARVA - "In" the letters of popuLAR VAriety. | |