CRYPTIC CROSSWORD

▶ Across

1. No amateur could have discovered the deep (8)

7. Visitor one doesn't want to be unsuccessful about turn (5)

8. Can't even forgo the vanilla topping served here (7)

9. Allowed not to be pardoned (7)

10. It makes some connection with an oldfashioned torch (4)

12. Is not as old as guy Nero turned out (7)

14. Money put down for tip does make it up (7)

17. State of flow when one gets influenza before ten (4)

18. Toe the line and study the race-books (7)

21. Pal to be capable of being drunk (7)

22. Atmospheric layer is an ounce short, one concludes (5)

23. Degree of slope it makes with garden (8)

Yesterday's solution

Across 7. In the short run 8. Grasshopper

12. Instep 14. Yearly 16. Cut-out 18. Tapers

19. Copperplate 23. Margin of error

Down 1. Snag 2. Thea 3. Uses up 4. Colony 5. Step

6. Burr 9. Risotto 10. Earnest 11. Byes 12. Inch

13. Emu 15. Era 17. Tweeny 18. Typify 19. Crab

20. Pegs 21. Acre 22. Eros

▶ Down

1. A preserve the French will choose to start with (6)

2. Admitting to having won pug in the confusion (6,2)

3. Nothing is very curtailed if it's finished (4)

4. Number Ten one put up in the Big Apple (6)

5. Some bother us in fits when it isn't present (4)

6. About right checking finish for plaster (6)

7. Professorial lesson the French make truce about (7)

11. Put back the trees or replant them (7)

13. Easily taken in by bill glue it into place (8)

14. Fiddle with the books of a medical man (6)

15. Harden or soften, according to one's state of mind (6)

16. Think it will happen that one will have a child (6)

19. Negative meets itself coming up at twelve (4)

20. The boss allowed the dust to settle (4)