CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

▶ Across

1. Blow this contraption on stage! (4-7)

8. Praise of the French return in knockouts (5)

9. Make one go without chopped snake, having half made a start (7)

10. Decorative wear that's first class may be taken in by receiver (7)

11. The first flying baby-carriage? (5)

12. According to one's these is one switched-on or not? (6)

14. ‘sometimes lurk I in a ___'s bowl’ (AMND) (6)

18. Pay the comics for including last pantomime (5)

19. It's made exactly like one sort of parcel (7)

21. It's jug for speed rating, or admittance to motoring club (7)

23. Father brings horse back, being heathen (5)

24. Girl who goes crooked at work perhaps (11)

▶ Yesterday's solution

Across 1. Bogus 4. Stopper 8. Experimenting

10. Clear 11. Ogle 12. Mere 16. Evert 17. Authoritative

19. Gadgets 20. Taped

Down 1. Breakdown gang 2. Gap 3. Spruce

4. Summer 5. Owners 6. Prisoners

7. Right Reverend 9. Collected 13. Remove

14. Remiss 15. Strait 18. Imp

▶ Down

1. Alert and almost complete, after the night watch (7)

2. Giving a sign that one is about to drop off (7)

3. Mother and her boy who's in the building trade (5)

4. Might care about him, please God, being a sponge (6)

5. The little devil – Cockney has to lay it on thick (7)

6. Biblical priest gives the Spanish one (3)

7. Intermission up, go off for the holidays (5)

13. United States ship tore about in a material way (7)

15. A gritty sort of hairstyle it may be (7)

16. One is surrounded by growing things heard in court (7)

17. It's right to have fruit around and give a sermon (6)

18. Goes about in clothes as one shows signs of age (5)

20. Didn't he give a blow for his son Tom? (5)

22. The matter that causes a cat to be Manx (3)