Cryptic No. 5 — cryptic crossword

A cryptic puzzle: 34 clues on a 13×13 grid. Solve it online — check your answers as you go, ask for a hint, and read how each clue works once it is solved.

Across

1. Tablets made up for military engagements (7)
5. Uncertain state reached by bending over backwards under a bar (5)
8. Look down on speed, is that out of order? (7)
10. Titbit shedding a pound becomes dots and dashes (5)
11. Aide upset, having a thought (4)
13. Way gear is changed in a fury at the wheel (4,4)
16. Grin losing its head over the distance (4)
17. Lower a face covering, we're told (4)
18. Tender, going back to the god of love (4)
19. Small in a barrel, yet enormous (4)
20. Light meals cooked in the east (4)
22. Study aloud part of an oboe (4)
23. A police branch trial gives the crucial proof (4,4)
25. Meat cooked up for the side (4)
26. Subtlety you abandoned for a girl (5)
27. Dad's set is wrecked — most miserable! (7)
30. Idler disturbed! (5)
31. Fashionable spot in place of another (7)

Down

1. How a doctor puts you at ease: bunk, party and a stately pile, reportedly (7,6)
2. Sit up for the archaic ‘it is’ (3)
3. Flowery welcome woven from a lie (3)
4. One taking notes when the tones are all over the place (5)
5. Innocent, turning up an ad, becomes a Greek character (6)
6. Mother, somehow alarmed, gets the breakfast spread (9)
7. Over-meditates madly, and was valued too generously (13)
9. Softly brought up — and given a good write-up (7)
12. Sentimental feeling with one left over (9)
13. Recycle, note, to some purpose (5)
14. State time to head off (5)
15. Fixed — and quite unable to look away (7)
21. Turn up for a dry finish (6)
24. Suspicion over a greeting for Japanese food (5)
28. Leaders of damned invoking Satan, god of the underworld (3)
29. First woman appearing in the eleven (3)

More: Cryptic cryptic crosswords.

Front page · Onesies · Gentle · Standard · Cryptic · Toughie · Themed · How to solve