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I also found this more difficult than most weeks but that was most welcome. Really enjoyed it, a great range of clues.

Reasonably tough I thought. A couple were a little tortuous to parse, 11a, 24a, for example but I enjoyed 20a and 13a. I did think 9a should have been boats plural as you only get one of these per boat (unless I’m mistaken).
I see a rhyming pair again!

Well spotted Jono:-)

A strange mix of 4 letter write ins and complex parsing of longer ones. Some ugly surfaces mar an otherwise interesting challenge. Agree re the boat place, and a Doh! moment when solving as I wasn't sure about 1dn.

Thanks for all the comments. I like the 9a spoonerism. Stuck on 12d. I have H-S-E -A-O-E am i close?

Can anyone help with parsing 16A and 24A? With the former, the answer seems to contain a surplus U. As for the latter, I'm utterly mystified, unless there's some obscure convention that news = NNN!
PS 16A almost resolves if you approach it very differently ... and have knowledge of Ru Paul's Drag Race. (I Googled the name of a queen and it returned the correct answer!)

Hi Yevrah,

Your S should be a U - it's an anagram/"libertine" of three words in the clue + the initial letters of two other words/"to begin with" - definition is a place in France.

Hi Yevrah
Your S is wrong. All the other crossers are fine.

Hi Phil,

16a "A" from the clue + 2 letters for "queen" + 4 letter operatic song.

24a see my post @6

PS

16a the "brill" referred to is a fish.