CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

ACROSS

2. Deal a card face-up for Oliver (5)

5. Type of window that may get worn with decoration (4)

7. Plant that enjoys a half-life with the Navy (4)

8. Are they a middling sort of business? (8)

9. If the mire makes golf awkward, he’ll be off to the cinema (8)

11. Crank might otherwise be pronounced a blow (4)

12. Where one may get to leave one’s troubles behind one (4,4,2,3)

15. How many were taken in hand by coaching parties (4)

17. The reporting on it is finished in prison (8)

19. It could be paternal – or maternal! (8)

21. How one may extract a tie (4)

22. The bishop is to finish at the corner (4)

23. Youngster having two ways to be weighted down (5)

DOWN

1. What first person to have a look-in is invited to? (7)

2. It’s the fashion that weighs heavy (3)

3. State I was equipped as a gardener, inconclusively (5)

4. Article – or print measure – as propounded by Pythagoras (7)

5. Is up to leading critic to read it the way it’s printed (3)

6. It’s the rear that may be forbidding to some (5)

10. Council leader for a month has an alternative (5)

11. Tar we have replaced as an element to the ancient (5)

13. The telling of how it’s given in concert (7)

14. A loiterer who may haul a girl up (7)

16. Alternatively dined, so to speak (5)

18. Five are given a cap that will hold good (5)

20. It was the finish of the journey that was staged (3)

21. Being mouse-coloured, will go after those that owe money (3)