The Times 28876

[TioMateo]

I managed to come up with all of the answers, but there are 6 clues where I do not understand (nor sometimes accept) the parsing :-

 

Arab nation reversed hold on island (7)  K?W?I?I.  It can hardly be anything other than KUWAITI, but KUWAIT is an Arab nation and I is an island, so what is the definition and how does "reversed hold on" fit in?

 

Not exactly a shock for one getting behind supporter(5) C?A?R

Possibly CHAIR is a supporter, but the rest??  HAIR could be Shock, I suppose.

 

Feature of gents' retailers? (5) C?A?N.  Looks like CHAIN, but why?

 

Nancy's friends going on to make lace floor coverings (7)      T?T?M?S. I get TATAMIS (Floor coverings) but nothing else.

 

Declare vests to have shrunk after spinning a few (7) S?V?R?L

Okay, SEVERAL is "a few".  VE is a shortened version of "have"

But what is SERAL or LARES to do with "Declare"?

 

 State intervening in divorce, arguably with no questions asked (15) U?C?N?I?I?N?L?Y.  So it's UNCONDITIONALLY (hmm) but, since when does UNALLY mean divorce - or even exist as a word?   TIA (rant over!)

[Toorak]

Tat (lace) amis (Nancy's friends/ friends in French)

[Toorak]

Aver (declare) ves(ts) anagrammed

[Toorak]

Feature of gents .... chain store (retailers)

[Lie-in King]

Kuwaiti - 'UK' (nation, reversed) + 'wait' (hold) + 'i(sland)'
Chair (behind supporter) - 'c(irca; not exactly) hair (shock)'

"dec LARE VES ts..."

Un-ally; divorce

[TioMateo]

Thank you both Toorak and Lie-in King.  I'm very happy with 5 out of 6 (particularly KUWAITI), though it took me a while to see CHAIN as a feature of a gents' lavatory.

 

I am not at all happy about "Un-ally" meaning divorce.  At the very least, I would have expected a Question Mark after the word "divorce" given the word doesn't exist, or is someone going to refer me to some woke uban street slang dictionary to show it does?