When google and DA come together for learnings.
Sadly, this one’s clearly the best of a shallow lot:
11 down: (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) 7-down 10-across’s own cat feller (3, 6)
Here, cat = tom, feller = sawyer and you get the rather humorous Samuel Langorne Clemens’s own = Tom Sawyer = cat feller. I thought this was going to be a candidate for DA Bullshit because the y seems to appear from nowhere, but yet again DA teaches me something new and online dictionaries again prove their worth — a sawyer is a person who saws.
2 down: Managed to cinch front evenly on little Bavarian dress
A German co-worker helped me out on this one, but, even then, I still had no confidence putting the answer in because I couldn’t figure out an explanation. Thankfully, NC came to the rescue with an explanation, and we have here managed = did, front evenly = rn, managed to cinch front evenly = dirndl = little Bavarian dress.
Update: Oopsies! As NC pointed out in the comments, I forgot to account for the l. The explanation should be managed = did, front evently = rn, little = l (which is dodgy) so that we get managed to cinch front evenly little = dirndl = Bavarian dress.
22 down: Audio circuit magnifying glass
I knew this one circuit = loop and audio circuit = (sounds like) loop, but I had no idea that a loupe was a type of magnifying glass used primarily by jewellers and watchmakers, thus giving audio circuit = loupe = magnifying glass.
21 across: Massive wombat turned lazy with excess, yet alert (10)
Google got me diprotodon = massive wombat, which is a fine piece of DA nastiness and a fine piece of DA-taught trivia, but I have not the faintest clue how turned lazy with excess, yet alert = diprotodon.
2 down: Dominant assembly reportedly leading Lucerne? (5)
I got this out after mistakenly assuming that dominant = alpha because assembly = alp, and for some unbeknownst reason I figured it must be that ha = reportedly leading Lucerne. But in my Googling, my mind expanded upon discovering that lucerne is actually another name for alfalfa, so that dominant assembly = alpha = reportedly leading Lucerne.
24 across: Sparkly Silverchair? (8)
With a cross clue, it was clear that silver = ag and that the remaining six letters would be a kind of chair. What I didn’t know was that a litter is the chair on certain wheelless and human-powered vehicles, and that silver = ag, chair = litter and aglitter = sparkly.
20 down: Lilo’s mate a pain in the long run (6)
I had no idea there was a Disney film called Lilo and Stitch, which is perhaps the reason why I never solved this clue.