The Age Cryptic by DH 20,561

Wow, I didn't think I'd get a chance to do anything today but this puzzle was very easy. I had most of it done in the waiting room for my daughter's x-rays with no tech allowed to help me out. The bottom went is first and then the top, getting a little held up in the NW corner with 10A and 1D.

I am riled by 13D and I've said before I don't like negative or sexist words for women used in puzzles. I say that because there are so few words of equal weight that can only be applied to men that don't also insult another group, like women or homosexuals. Try and think of an insult to describe men that is not unisex or involve women ("sissy" "douche" "pussy") or homosexuals ("fudge-packer" "faggot") and see how many you get. I asked friends to help and the list was very small: Pecker (-head, -wood), Wanker, Bum. I was trying to get a launch word to put into the thesaurus to get more male central insults and it's proving difficult. Not that I want to go about insulting men but to point out there are millions of words that would better serve in a crossword than reusing ones that are used to harm. Would I be happy to see "Pecker" in a grid defined as an insult to men? No way, I like men too much.

That said, I did like a few of these clues and the circled ones are shared on CCLearners Facebook group. I was happy to see 23A and thought if it wasn't one of the three horses I could name, I'd be screwed. I know Trigger, Silver (The Lone Ranger's horse) and Tornado (Zorro's horse) and I was safe - it was one of those. I liked 6D too because my first thought was of Bernadette Peters but then realised it's cryptic so had to be someone else.

I did finish but I have a few questions. Here's my pic:

12A - Award for short December speech? (10)

I got the answer by making the word "declaration" short by one letter but is there another solution here?

16A - Colourful church to go up (6)

"Church" = CE and "to go up" = RISE for CERISE, a colour. I can't think where we'd use "colourful" with CERISE apart from blushing but we don't say "blushful" so I'm missing some grammar thing here. I'm not the biggest grammar pedant but I should try more.

19A - Pass model a horse gun (4)

I got this a double definition with just "horse gun" = COLT but the rest I'm not sure of unless it's "pass" = C as in the grade and "model" = T but that doesn't leave anything for the LT that I see with "horse." Does this mean just having "horse gun" as the clue would've been too easy?

13D - Time old Ottoman starts new toilet for shrew (9)

I used thesaurus, definition and cross letters to get. I thought "time" = T and "starts New Toilet" = NT but how "old Ottoman" worked I don't know.

17D - Betting the Italian back to take care of hair trouble (5,3)

I got this with cross letters and definition but I just realised this as I was typing - is it "betting" = SP, "the Italian, back" = IL reversed to LI and "to take care of" = TEND. Yes, I think that's it!

24A - Stresses existence of Egyptian goddess (4)

Is this just saying "Is! Is!" in a kind of "Is not!" "Is so Is so Is Isisisisisinfintytoamillion!" kind of thing?

That's me done. Oh well I do have a few more male centric insults to add to the list: Goon, Brute, Cad (not used much these days really but then neither is termagant), Lout, Basement dweller, Neckbeard (I had to have that one explained to me - thanks @Mr_Indigo) Boy, Deadbeat and Putz. I have seen lout in puzzles as well as thug. I know it's my pet peeve with puzzles and I don't expect it to be everyone else's. I just want us all to play nice.