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As usual, I've made a promising start, then ground to a halt. I have most of the middle 4 rows. Would appreciate a nudge with 6,22 Down, and 12,30 Across.

I always find Playfairs very difficult. Is there a logical way to try to deduce the code phrase? - there generally seems to be a lot of trial and error.

Thanks in anticipation, as always

The enciphered duo appear in the first word in both 6,22 (without doubt) and 12,30 (as far as I can tell).

Thanks, I'd suspected both of them, but can't see the corrections needed.

I do have an idea for 12Ac, but it doesn't seem to parse, and it's a bit of a stretch to see how it's defined. Apart from that, it's fine...!

12: 'rocks' as in 'bling'.

Where is the enciphered duo in 11(,31)?

No need to help - I've found it

Dylan go to http://www.quinapalus.com/playfair.html. You may regard that as cheating but I have to confess that I use it

Another approach, if you know eg. that DU->UP, EA->UN and AC->CO, is to feed the the whole string 'TheBardsCoupling' into wordsmith advance anagram solver, specifying say a max of 3 or 4 words output. You can scroll through every single anagram, but usually some catch the eye, for example beginning with BACON, DUPLE...(I don't know yet whether this is correct - so don't spend too much time if it doesn't seem to work...)

Can anyone explain the wordplay for 21A. I assume the entry is GALRAVAGE, or perhaps GILRAVAGE.

GAL is the Letter to the Galatians; RAVAGE is sack; RK goes to GS.

Thanks Bananabean, I really should have thought NT book...