11 across: Diabolical flower lodges in ear (4)
TC and I (AS) had to cheat for this one. Styx is the answer, but what’s the direct clue? The river Styx is meant to be in Hades, but that’s certainly too long a bow to draw from diabolical, isn’t it? Lodges = sticks = sounds like styx would suggest the direct clue is diabolical flower, but Google makes no mention of any flower that goes by that name.
25 across: Euro-capital put back into secret, grand IT security (6, 5)
This one is not too hard, but the direct clue is vague at best. The answer is memory stick, meaning that euro-capital put back = emor, secret = mystic and grand = k. This means, however, that IT security is the direct clue and that it’s supposed to be a synonym for memory stick, which is just a load of shit, really.
11 across:
If you have been doing battle with DA for a few years, as I have, you will have come across this piece of DA nastiness quite regularly.
“Flower” means “river” i.e. something that flows!!! (cue loud groans…)
I always mean to store this one away in the memory banks, but somehow it doesn’t seem to stick very well & DA gets away with it again and again…