No 14545, Thursday 24 Jul 2025, Pixie Dust

Solution to 7A has been deliberately left unsolved and is to be answered only by a non-regular / novice commenter, with proper annotation. Those who have answered earlier in the week, please give others a chance. 

Open for anyone to solve, if not solved by 1 PM.

ACROSS

7   Knight overwhelmed by cad's feelings (6) ?R?A?T (Addendum - BREAST {B{R}EAST} - See comments)

8   Conservative girl provided YMCA's file (8) CLASSIFY {C}{LASS}{IF}{Y}

9   Hot nurse's oddly meridional (8) SOUTHERN*

10 Caught an idle broadcast (6) NAILED*

11 From the beginning the English Rose Resort in Faridabad inspired contentment - it's fabulous! (8) TERRIFIC Acrostic

12 Some have to escape embargos (6) VETOES [T]

13 Spooner mentions 'Bride's tresses' say, in varieties of occupations? (5,2,4) WALKS OF LIFE (~locks of wife to walks of life)

18 Empty container inside tub (6) VACANT {VA{CAN}T}

20 Extremely long ground used in second test (8) STRONGLY {S}{TR{LONG*}Y}

22 Letters from Josiahs in uppercase held back, correct? (6) PUNISH [T<=]

23 Puffy's old flame, passionate at first and extremely enamoured (8) EXPANDED {EX}{Pa...e}{AND}{En...eD}

24 Struggle with new flickering sign in alerts (8) WARNINGS {WAR}{N}{SIGN*}

25 Slimmer red tie, perhaps (6) DIETER*

DOWN

1   Criminal prepared a meal holding recipe (7) CROOKED {C{R}OOKED}

2   So these bugs made a mess of aerobatics? (8) BACTERIA {BACTERIA+SO}^= AEROBATICS [CA]

3   Jerks cycling around elevated railway is the very thing (6) ITSELF {(-f}ITS(+f)F} over {EL}

4   Four involved in wanton celebration (8) CARNIVAL {CARN{IV}AL}

5   Top model was ultimately knocked over, right? (1-5) T-SHIRT {T}{waS}{HI{R}T}

6   How deer could be presented? (7) OFFERED {DEER}* [RA]

8   Potentially use coin over and over again for mental activity? (13) CONSCIOUSNESS {USE+CON}* Letter Bank

14 Annoyingly the sink has a bit of crack where dishes are kept? (8) KITCHENS {THE+SINK}* over {Cr..k}

15 Engaged men, say, without any essential resources (8) FINANCES {FI{aNy}ANCES}

16 Brown returns to the mountains, it's to be expected! (7) NATURAL {TAN<=}{URAL}

17 Rip Van Winkle, for one, sold even poetry every now and then (7) SLEEPER {SoLd+EvEn+PoEtRy}

19 A mortgage scheme basically for foreigners (6) ALIENS {A}{LIEN}{Sc...e}

21 Attacks implicating political leader led to outpouring (6) RAPIDS {RA{Po...l}IDS}

Reference List

Knight = R(Ritter), Conservative = C, Second = S, Old flame = EX, New = N, Recipe = R, Elevated railway = EL, Right = R