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Aha, thanks eagle. Didn’t know the shorter one. Can now put this to bed in my mind!

New to me too!

It took me ages to get 9 a. African capital L to R. A African capital R to L,. very clever

Yes, thanks. In South Sudan!

@9a read from left to right it's an African capital, but read from right to left (heading West) you also get A + an African capital.

Thanks all, I had the right answer and now I know why. I had never heard of the shorter one, but I was a mathematician not a geographer.

Ah brilliant, thanks all!

9A very clever. Stuck with 23A although I have every 2nd letter
?E?O?A?I?E.

Hi Myla,

23a definition is "depreciating" (not the most common usage) - first 2 letters are initial/original letters from 2 words in the clue + 4 letter word for "steps quickly taken" (think 'dance') around the usual abbr. for "old" and 3 letter word for "scoundrel".

Thanks for the hints about 9a. Funny how one gets fixated on an idea even though the parsing is impossible. I had convinced myself (based on the 3 crossing letters) that the answer was the name of the first of the Dutch Leeward Antilles islands which are often referred to as the ABC Islands. So I thought 'A' was the definition and was trying to make the wordplay fit around that. Doh!