Introduction
I pretty much completed this puzzle unaided, even though there were some fairly challenging clues. I did need to consult the dictionary for 8d. I had determined all the letters and knew that all the checking letters were Is but needed to figure out where to place all the Vs and Ds.
Today's Glossary
Some possibly unfamiliar abbreviations, people, places, words and expressions used in today's puzzle
Appearing in Solutions
divi-divi - [American Heritage Dictionary] noun 1. A small tree (Caesalpinia coriaria) of the West Indies and South America, having compound leaves and long pods.
tit - noun 5 (old, no longer used) A small horse; a nag.
Links to Solutions
A review of today's puzzle by talbinho can be found at Times for the Times [ST 4388].
Commentary on Today's Puzzle
16a Frenzied troll grabbing first mate aft of tanker (8)
I can find no evidence to support talbinho's statement that "a troll is a type of fish" other than that troll, used as a noun, means "a line or bait used in trolling for fish". Troll, when used as a verb, means to "fish by trailing a baited line along behind a boat".
20a Spotted horse? That's material! (6)
Is there such a thing as a calico horse? There are certainly calico cats, and even some insects and fish with calico in their names - but I had trouble finding calico horses. I did find a few hints that such a horse might exist - a quilting store in California called The Calico Horse, a stud farm in British Columbia called Calico Quarter Horses, as well as a California band called Calico Horse. Calico is also a brand of horse trailer, and wild horses roam the Calico Mountains of Nevada. According to a visitor to Times for the Times, this latter reference is the correct one, "Calico horses are wild horses that live in the calico mountains. Not necessarily spotted".
By the way, I discovered that calico fabric is quite different in Britain from what it is in North America. British calico is "a white or unbleached cotton fabric with no printed design" while the North American fabric is "a coarse printed cotton fabric".
Therefore, if a Calico Horse were to exist, perhaps it would be an all white horse in Britain, whereas in North America, it would be a spotted horse.
5d Spin put on all main points, then information screened (8)
There are two plausible solutions matching the wordplay, but only one of them satisfies the checking letters. Unfortunately, I initially fell for the wrong one, thereby seriously compromising my efforts to solve the intersecting clues, 12a and 16a.
The two possibilities are NEWSREEL (the correct solution) and NEWSCAST. In either case, NEWS is "all main points", i.e., the cardinal points of the compass (North, East, West, and South). To this we must add (put on) a word meaning "spin". I had initially interpreted spin in the sense of "to fish with a light rod, lure, and line and a reel with a stationary spool" or, in other words, to cast (to throw something, especially to throw out a lure or bait at the end of a fishing line). However, the meaning that the setter has in mind is "to seem to be whirling, as from dizziness; reel".
15d Bird taking vermin from worn-out nag (8)
The solution to this clue definitely wants to be TITMOUSE. The wordplay certainly seems to suggest that one must delete a word meaning "vermin" from a word (or phrase) meaning "worn-out nag" to get a a word meaning "bird". However, that is apparently not the case at all. The "vermin" of the clue is MOUSE and the "bird" is TITMOUSE (although it could just as easily have been TIT, which is another name for the same bird). But how does "worn-out nag" factor into the equation? Although talbinho shows "worn-out nag" meaning TIT, he provides no further information, so I embarked on some further research. I must say that doing a web search for slang expressions meaning or involving the word "tit" is rather an eye-opening experience. It turns out that tit is an obsolete expression for "a small horse; a nag". I interpret the "worn-out" in the clue to refer to the fact that this meaning of the word "tit" is obsolete. Thus, "tit" is not a word meaning "worn-out nag" but just an old (worn-out) word meaning "nag".
If this is a simple charade (as shown by talbinho in his review), then "taking" must be a link word and "from" a charade indicator. Such a clue might have been constructed as "Bird is vermin on worn-out nag". However, in the clue as presented, I am really struggling to see either "taking" or "from" playing these roles.
This might actually be a better clue for TIT, where one would read the first part of the clue as "Bird, taking vermin from" and parse the clue as:
- TITMOUSE (bird) with MOUSE (vermin) deleted (taking ... from) /\ TIT (worn-out nag)
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