CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

▶ Across

1. Drying frame right in the centre of the non-u home (5)

4. Ursa Minor? (4-3)

8. What may give one some purchase? The pound — always! (5)

9. Go and look for former spouse study : around London first (7)

10. One of the first gardeners eternally curtailed (3)

11. Examined how am replaced by awkward friend and made clear (9)

12. In which to dry malt, as in first part of Bible (4)

13. In Berlin, it's the wife who's responsible for a fur turn-out (4)

18. They test a collier involved in sexchange (9)

20. Rewarded monetarily but, having lost head, required assistance (3)

21. Were there ten I'd tees for? (7) 22. Easterner and Southerner in all neutral leaders (5)

23. Imagined it was expected to be in numbers (7)

24. Casts off the engine-works (5)

▶ Down

1. Was not served, so took what one wanted (6,7)

2. Newspaper pieces concerned with prospects (7)

3. With justification got scholarly, having abandoned start (6)

4. Radio signals, having begun badly, disrupted sleep (6)

5. Seem to have a fruit quietly consumed (6)

6. Do some dental work off the top of one's head? (5)

7. Sweets produced by those who use their loaf, no doubt (5,8)

14. Come to see what's genuine is energy (7)

15. When it's cold between, the West will initiate it (6)

16. Struck the ball when one was at the top (6)

17. Tries such things as Lamb wrote (6) 19. A sound from a timer is being imitative (5)

▶ Yesterday's solution Across 1. Picturesque 8. Leech 9. Precede 10. Veteran 11. Lover 12. Resign 14. Edible 18. Delta 19. Situate 21. Rossini 23. Omaha 24. Darning-wool Down 1. Palaver 2. Creates 3. Usher 4. Expend 5. Quelled 6. Ewe 7. Cheer 13. Glazier 15. Bravado 16. Eyeball 17. Assisi 18. Dirge 20. Thong 22. Sad