“18” Crossword

1. Midday food including a bit of wadding from which Apollo was shot, amongst many (6,3)

2. Typographic layout involving caryatids, possibly (8)

3. Cry out our quahog should go first (7)

4. Ask: was it turning too far right, symbolically? (8)

5. Much ballyhoo found at a fairground (6)

6. Slowly start to kill animals, causing row (5)

7. Jocular chap aboard cart (5)

8. Hard knock to light way of burning off paint, say (9)

9. Hold up! Don’t go! (4)

10. Conscript’s in conduit (6)

11. Wrongly put as ‘pimply’, possibly? (8)

12. Whip hanky out – ta muchly! (5,3)

13. Irish intimidators start to quail in hot country (4)

14. ‘You twit,’ says Stan to comic pal? That’s rash (9)

15. Shout out from military building (7)

16. Halo going round sun on tracks with a sort of thrombosis (8)

17. Dub carton ‘thing to ring from’ (4,3)

18. What this crossword is initially lacking is puns, or good rational anagrams, mostly (8)

19. Look into top of cranium for a mollusc (7)

20. Old autocrat not finishing crazy mix-up (4)

21. Tacky path? (6)

22. It throws Kitty a poor, untidy London taxi, initially (8)

23. Canopy put aslant (4)

24. Absurd as a position by a batsman (5)

25. Virtuous as a harpsichord (8)

26. Catalog fruity mix as a standstill (3,3)

27. Put shroud round capacity for a lavatory (9)

28. Vulgar jollity at Oxford? (5)