I had a strong start, getting both 1a and 1d immediately, and I thought I was on a roll. I got a bit lost in the middle and then it all fell into place towards the end.
This is the latest in a run of good Toughie crosswords. Not so Tough that you can’t finish it, but it gives you a warm glow of satisfaction when you do. Don’t forget that the linked items usually contain information related to the answer – sometimes you may need to look at the url (the bit that starts http://).
I was racing through this one, with thoughts of a relatively early night, when suddenly I hit a brick wall in the bottom right hand corner. At least three out of the five difficulty stars are for this corner – see what you think.