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Hi everyone

I've astonished myself by practically finishing. I only have the second word of 5d to get for which I have ?A?T. This assumes my first word is right. I think I've been having a mental lapse. Please can I have a hint.

I did have trouble parsing a couple including the first four letters of 10ac and 16d. Not to mention 24d. I got 1d (nattily) and 25ac once I spelt it right.

I actually found this crossword easy. I seemed to be on the right wavelength with Paul for once. I enjoyed the long clue and there were several anagrams and hiddens for me.

But surely this has to be one of Araucaria’s longest clues…

6d Funny thing afoot – shy vernal youths go contemplating girls: Thus (in catalectic trochees) poem by 19 unfurls (2,3,6,1,5,4,5,7,5,2,8,2,4)

The answer to 19 is Tennyson

2nd word of 5D is the type of Pants someone from Viz has

I mentioned far above that 17 was familiar...it occurred in the wordplay of the very recent Guardian Prize 28,554 (Picaroon), and as a solution in Paul's Guardian 26,207 (2014). Not surprisingly, Cyclops in Private Eye has also employed it.

10A is 2 homophones following each other
16D is a word for "with", followed by the first letter of 2 other words inside a word meaning "standard"
24D is 2 words meaning 1 dollar truncated and reversed

Re. longest answer in a Guardian puzzle, see

https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2011/oct/13/crossword-blog-meet-the-setter-enigmatist

I recall Enigmatist's one-time record (based on Roger Miller's "King of the Road" (even solved it iirc), but don't know of Taupi's magnum opus involving the first paragraph of "Catch-22".

Many thanks PS. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with Viz so no further on with my second part to 10d.

Thanks for the explanations for 10ac and 16d. I still don't get 24d, but I'm sure I've got the right island.

Back to my ironing, which I must catch up with.

Just googled Viz and got the answer. I'd never have though of that!!

Still can't see the wordplay.

A word for large containing a single letter for right.