CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1. Intensified ache around top of nerve, in the end (8)

7. It’s funny, to turn over and over after an old copper (5)

8. Possibly they will be pen-friends in future (7)

9. A nouveau riche at the beginning of the rocket race? (7)

10. Punch’s dog may be full of beer (4)

12. It is re query about a palace official (7)

14. Wise old bird in Gibraltar found on a boat (7)

17. Where the mail is distributed in South America (4)

18. Wedding pledge allowed to be seen growing ahead (7)

21. Gin is simplicity, one is told, as a prop for the circus artiste (7)

22. Shakespeare said he was sighing like a furnace (5)

23. A blood-feud to sell — and for the French, a thankyou (8)

DOWN

1. Stir things up, go out when about a hundred, and go east (6)

2. Elevated a feature that’s intellectual (8)

3. Lack direction being in the wrong end (4)

4. Make certain sun has moved before being surrounded (6)

5. A finish to fish that puts an end to movement (4)

6. Thus refused, at fifty, to have an insect around (6)

7. Put in, off-side, to start a quarrel (7)

11. Carriage might soundly be announced by an angry dog (7)

13. One living in the team is torn about (8)

14. Not often does one count on artist turning up inside (6)

15. It may be a whistler among the drums (6)

16. In which, exposure is secret perhaps (6)

19. A feature of church architecture in a Corinthian avenue (4)

20. A fat Scottish landowner I left (4)