CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1. Had the courage to have issued a challenge (5) 4. Swagger with which each might go to pot (7) 8. Make trifling objections, as do six in California (5) 9. Portion, for instance, people get in the street (7) 10. Let’s face it, one’s a fool (3) 11. It’s a tart – or it might be – from an Italian restaurant (9) 12. Discourteous to the Right, due to changes (4) 13. Encouragement one may be given by a heel (4) 18. To isolate people who agree gets confusing (9) 20. As one might make a monkey of it (3) 21. Field in error, due to a non-believer (7) 22. Marshy pine forest turning against missing poles (5) 23. How one might scan net while it’s coming into being (7) 24. None excluded the day before on the railway (5)

DOWN

1. Gradual release of pressure some conspired to bring about (13) 2. Laid it waste as one stormed around Virginia (7) 3. To water it down, I’d turn up an instrument (6) 4. Get a clasp from Blaise, a philosopher (6) 5. Deny one hasn’t begun to confine the pupils to college (6) 6. Food that will buck one up (5) 7. An additional figure in heraldry that’s out of the usual run (13) 14. Success in test I have achieved while being lethargic (7) 15. Interfere with a gong, by the sound of it (6) 16. Dance gives one everything to wager about (6) 17. Gradual way one left a non-Jew (6) 19. Talents one has for making donations (5)