No 2824, Sunday 18 Jan 2015

ACROSS
1   Benefits from book by novelist, Doris's last (9) BLESSINGS {B}{LESSING}{doriS}
6   Shoot bishop after all others (5) BLAST {B}{LAST}
9   Punch a mate (5) CHINA {CHIN}{A}
10 Big top musical? Backing provisional (9) TENTATIVE {TENT}{ATIVE<=}
11 Actor, in the guise of Scottish king, about to wade across behind duke (6,7) ROBERT REDFORD {ROBERT}{RE}{D}{FORD} Remember seeing him in 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'
13 Drunk loiters in a Portuguese resort (7) ESTORIL*
14 An expert in Pennsylvania helps to produce a universal remedy (7) PANACEA {P{AN}{ACE}A}
16 Ruby? Girl in former tin mining town (7) REDRUTH {RED}{RUTH} Thanks to Google
18 Vulgar about Salvation Army campaign (7) CRUSADE {CRU{SA}DE}
19 Baffling drama? Pretend not to be interested (4,4,2,3) PLAY HARD TO GET [DD]
22 House in historic city (9) LANCASTER [DD]
23 Miss Grey, a long time entertaining knight (5) AGNES {AG{N}ES}
24 Box containing English throwing weapon (5) SPEAR{SP{E}AR}
25 Began to check boundary not rigorously fixed (4-5) OPEN-ENDED {OPEN-{END}ED}

DOWN
1   Reverse taxi over, parking at centre (4) BACK {BAC<=}{parKing}
2   Moved abroad - good being in Dubai, for example, with daughter (9) EMIGRATED {EMI{G}RATE}{D}
3   Groucho's Bar playing show song (11,4) SCARBOROUGH FAIR {GROUCHO'S+BAR}* {FAIR}

4   Turning brown - Russian river, as is to be expected (7) NATURAL {NAT<=}{URAL}
5   Star member up in tanning area? (7) SUNTRAP {SUN}{TRAP<=}
6   Gunner grabbed unexpectedly, crossing at a landmark near to Checkpoint Charlie (11,4) BRANDENBURG GATE {BRANDENBURG G{AT}E*}

7   I travel, giving support to a male friend (5) AMIGO {I}{GO}<=>{A}{M}
8   Fail to make any progress, as war treated suspiciously (5,5) TREAD WATER*
12 Chief city in Middle East - large container port set up (10) METROPOLIS {ME}{TROP<=}{OLIS<=}
15 Humiliated Conservative hurried (9) CHASTENED {C}{HASTENED}
17 Hornblower's short speech after end of skirmish (7) HORATIO {s...sH}{ORATIOn}
18 Group from lake bed shown first (7) COTERIE {COT}{ERIE}
20 Girl, one interrupting queen (5) ANNIE {ANN{1}E}
21 Exploited group in House, Democrats (4) USED [T]