| TROG | Caveman, for short (and the appropriate starting square of the parade route, which is actually the opening lyrics of a famous march from "The Music Man" ... you can try tracing it as it winds through |
| SILKROAD | 6400km trade route which first linked China to the Mediterranean area around 2000 years ago (4,4) |
| ARTERIAL | Describing trunk route which affects the rail rate (8) |
| FLIGHTPLANS | The routes which aircraft intend to take logged with air- traffic control (6,5) |
| AIRWAYS | Publicise routes which are used by Santa? (7) |
| HYPOTENUSE | According to Pythagoras' theorem, "the square of the - of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides" (10) |
| PYTHAGORAS | Mathematician responsible for the right-angled triangle theorem about the square of the hypotenuse being equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides |
| HALL | Willis ?, author of 1958 stage play Disciplines of War, later renamed The Long and the Short and the |
| DIAGONAL | From the Greek for "through", a line joining non-adjacent vertices of a square or other polygon; a slanting row of squares of the same colour on a chessboard; or, the bias of cloth (8) |
| MAY | Sounds like the 'Castle of', but is actually the month of hawthorn! (3) |
| DYER | Danny __, actor who plays the drama-stricken Walford geezer who is actually the nephew of (4) |
| ANKLE | The backward bending "knee" of a flamingo's leg is actually the bird's ___ |
| CASHEW | Regarded as a type of nut, it is actually the seed of Anacardium occidentale , a tropical plant from Central America (6) |
| RIGHTDRESS | Appropriate uniform for one of the parade ground commands (5,5) |
| SEINE | Site of the Parade of Nations at the 2024 Olympics |
| CREDIBILITYGAP | Discrepancy between that claimed and what is actually the case (11,3) |
| ETHELMERMAN | Elm anther? Me thinks it is actually the American singing star known for There's No Business Like Show Business! (5,6) |
| CORIANDER | Blue Moon Belgian White beer is brewed with this herb, which is actually a dried fruit that adds a citrus note |
| CEDARRESIN | Siberian ____, which is actually extracted from pine trees, can be used as chewing gum and an incense ingredient |
| ANIMALCULISTS | They think there's more to come than is actually the case (13) |
