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Funny about 14d...I solved it, but was unsure of parsing because I'd forgotten that meaning of "quarrel" :-D ...there is a homophone of another meaning involved, but that one doesn't fully parse. Agreed on jono's parsing.

Hi Ohcelt
I only have to enter my email (having registered a few weeks ago). Nothing to pay.

Great crossword. Needed this thread to parse 14D.

Thought 12D was a cracker, though also not sure about penult letter.

Greetings to all

Re: 12D and the question of the penultimate letter - I think if it was intended to be "T" then the first two words of the clue would have been "bird-watchers", wouldn't it?

The penultimate letter being other than T gives the advantage of it actually being a word. Neither Chambers nor Google finds the T variant.

Yes, it's odd. My old registration opens up the puzzle online on my iPad, but on the Mac laptop it wants me to re-resister and pay £1. Curious.

Kirky, Chrise

The jumbo cryptic in today's Observer (by Calypso) is not a prize one, which I assume is why it doesn't ask you to submit an email address on line. Curiously I can access the jumbo online, whereas I hit the paywall if I want to see the normal Everyman.

The short 10 seems to give a reverse signal-- Bear up -- which is not borne out by the solution. I get the regular letters from Guard's van, then Out of service -- what does this add?
And the distracting Up at the end.
I must be missing something.

I don’t like it very much, but I think “bear up?” is meant to imply a bear “up” in the night sky.

Funny, that thought just came to me as I checked the forum for an answer.
Thanks Jono for sharing my thought.

I thought “bear up” was clever.