Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper, by David P. Williams, is terrific, save for the northwest corner. Ouch. Difficulties elsewhere — and there were many — seemed to disappear as I just kept looking and found answers suggesting themselves. Don’t think, but look, as Wittgenstein suggested. But I know he wasn’t speaking of crossword puzzles.

Some clue-and-answer pairs of note:

9-D, nine letters, “Bond orders.” Sell, again?

14-A, six letters, “Dome topper.” I suppose so.

20-D, letters, “What Churchill said saved more English lives ‘than all the doctors.’” He would say something like that.

24-A, five letters, “Perform, as an evening act?” Good grief.

24-D, five letters, “Subject of a Liverpool statue dedicated to ‘all the lonely people.’” Thank you for that.

26-A, eight letters, “Theoretical attractive force.” No, the law of attraction won’t bring you the answer.

29-A, eleven letters, “Hoity-toity.” I like seeing the answer, and seeing it spelled correctly.

31-A, eleven letters, “Got close without kissing.” Nothing to do with Hallmark movies, where incipient couples almost kiss but have to wait until the movie’s end to follow through.

33-D, five letters, “Chill.” Adjective? Noun? Verb?

And from the flummoxing northwest corner:

1-A, five letters, “Complete.” The clue and answer just don’t jibe. Complete describes a thing composed of all its parts. The answer describes parts.

1-D, six letters, “Picture’s p.s.” The clue is more of a hint than it might seem.

5-D, three letters, “Pittance that’s its own plural.” I thought of sou, but its plural is sous.

12-A, seven letters, “Most easily attained goal.” This is one clever clue.

15-A, eight letters, “It’s east of the Sulu Sea.” I hate geography trivia, though I’m sure this answer is not trivia to anyone east of the Sulu Sea. Crosses got me across the finish line.

My favorite in this puzzle: 49-D, three letters, “Gray matter.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.