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24d was singing well into the 20th century and famous enough to have a dessert named after her!

One might say the toast of her era.

I'll get my coat.

That is right. Definite word play. Not double definition. 9ac.

femmenoire@19: This Yank first heard of it in an Agatha Christie story so you're probably right!

...no wait. The Agatha Christie story involved "all my eye and Betty Martin." Well I don't know remember where I first heard of 19ac but it is UK (even the initialized version isn't in use here).

Fantastic puzzle, my CoD might be 1ac (also FOI) because the surface works so well. LOI were 22ac and then 23d--took me a while to remember the expression in 22ac.

It's often preceded by "sweet", with the solution being a euphemism for a much ruder expression.

The initial letters of 19a represent two words which are a much ruder way of saying "nothing", quite often preceded by "sweet" in British English.

SNAP, barreter!

Of course, I've been struggling. Done about half since 2.30pm, but enjoyed sitting in the garden despite noisy neighbours today.

I don't understand all the comments about 9ac, so I may have got the wrong answer, which I can't parse. I shall go away and ponder some more and look at the hints on the thread, which has already given me 22ac. I had no trouble getting 24d, which I rather like

I use the Chambers book of synonyms to help me, so rarely check things out in the actual dictionary, which I have a hard copy of. Mostly I find Google helpful providing I've remembered to charge up my phone! (I couldn't remember the names of the Spice Girls.)

I hope to be back

Snap, indeed Great minds ... as they say

TBH roof, I didn't understand the comments about 9a either. It seems obvious that it's 2,3, with "pierced" as the definition.