| Clues across |
| 1 | Sending back first-rate pot classified as available for all to see in perfect state (6) |
| 5 | Sagacious chaps, but not quite magic (4,3) |
| 9 | Unfortunate lad falls into in swirling dye – it’s fatal! (6) |
| 12 | It could encourage growth of deformed sterile fir (10) |
| 13 | I’m taking stance, creating burden (10) |
| 14 | Sponge he wrung out to make poison gas (8) |
| 15 | Romance? But I’m confused! (Al’s is 13 and Mo’s is 42, for example) (6,6) |
| 16 | Cursers tip out holy writings (10) |
| 18 | Mount gears in a special way – they boost the thrust of jet engines (10) |
| 20 | Placed before Danish leader, sullen expert pulled a face (8) |
| 22 | Hitchcock, say, making dormice flirt (4,8) |
| 24 | Perhaps small company can ripen in this heliocentric system (10) |
| 25 | Revo? (10) |
| 26 | Chick holding Amy sent off to get vent for fumes (7-5) |
| 27 | Apprenticed and requisitioned (8) |
| 28 | Time for shooting birds – start before autumn, perhaps? (4,6) |
| 30 | Pup’s sibling – or a companion in a portable bed? (10) |
| 32 | Grumpy? Hold same opinion, and break legs all around (12) |
| 34 | Initially eligible young lady on a railway – one sent out on a mission (8) |
| 36 | Notice lamb straying in pit for blue pigment (6,4) |
| 37 | Sailor – first native of Australia, perhaps (10) |
| 38 | Dance wildly clutching last of gigolos and be uplifted (6) |
| 39 | Heraldic device discovered in ground elder (7) |
| 40 | Man, sincere, over-serious, loses article (6) |
|
| Clues down |
| 2 | Note the unusual features of comb and saw (5) |
| 3 | Disinfectant in earthenware vessel carried by donkey . . . (I hesitate) . . . for each man with article inside gate (9,12) |
| 4 | Disease found in jail – men taking antibiotics (7) |
| 5 | Rejected materials and scrap for tubes (5,8) |
| 6 | Masters diverted rivulets (7) |
| 7 | “Dora, walk Flo – I’m off!” (She was a general factotum) (4,2,3,4) |
| 8 | Asleep whilst pin is placed under upturned cooking-vessel? Good! (7) |
| 9 | Taken to pieces? Sergeant did it! (Then re-assembled) (13) |
| 10 | Passing over a hand-gun in a car with this system making it easy to drive? (9,12) |
| 11 | Free toilets supported by Egyptian capital (5) |
| 17 | Container vessel, say? Gosh! I get surrounded by fish! (5,4) |
| 19 | Resolve to change President (9) |
| 21 | Bore candle etc awkwardly and jointly officiated at mass (13) |
| 22 | Redistribute biannual fee to this French palace (13) |
| 23 | Passed over whilst wearing warm material, we’re told – too fixed in one’s opinions? (4,2,3,4) |
| 29 | More run down, like a pomegranate compared to an apple? (7) |
| 30 | Sketch eel heading north – in the direction the way the wind blows (7) |
| 31 | Building established deep in forest I can’t enter, initially (7) |
| 33 | Presses manacles (5) |
| 35 | Harvests rotten pears (5) |
|
