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Hi Roof, always nice to hear of your gardening exploits in my home county. With 16 think of ‘can’ as a verb. And similarly 15, don’t worry about football, think of harry as a verb and therefore an anagrind…

Roof. State is the key. Forget football. And him particularly. 😂

Thanks Jono and Rocky

I got the State (15d) and hence 16ac and 17d. I think I have 24ac (a card game?) and 21ac, though can't parse this fully, leaving me with 16d for which I have P?T?C?. I'm assuming it finishes with the central heating, but I've no idea where the matter comes in.

I'm also stuck on 12ac and 8d. Hints for these might help me finish so I can eat my dinner in peace.

Hi Roof,
For 12 see earlier posts. The clue as written is to two pieces of word play.
8d Stunner, is something the police might use with one letter inserted.
24 yes the card game, ‘players’ as in those on a stage.
21 relies on a single letter abbr for money (it’s in Chambers but I’m never sure of the derivation)

Hi roof
21 The bank could be in a stadium
16 right so far. It might be an unfamiliar word, but it goes together from the parts. You are right about central heating.
I thought 12a and 8d very poor clues, so you are justified in not seeing them!
The headline in the gardening section of today's Guardian was what I wanter to hear - "Do as little as possible for the next few months"!

Thanks Jono and Chrise

I finally worked out why my answer for 16d was correct and finally got 8d (Doh!!) Chrise, thanks for where the the bank came from for 21ac. Jono I had thought of different card players for 24ac. The only one I really can't see despite the earlier hint about it is 12ac. I can fit any of six words in to this 5 letter answer and cannot see why any of them would be right. So I'm just going to guess at one of them.

Chrise, I only have a small garden, but I still need to cut lots back. Much of it can wait until Spring. I also need to take the last of the tomatoes, aubergines and cucumbers out of the green house and put it to bed for winter so I can put my tender plants in. Once the greenhouse is sorted (usually the last week in October), I shall retire for winter. No digging for me.

Hi again roof
The Guardian article suggested that leaving vegetation over winter was better for the soil; remove it next spring. (I must say that we have never tried this approach!)

Apparently even Tramp thought the clue for 12 was poor! (see post 19)

Hi Rocky7,

Ah, I hadn't connected your user name with the Rocky Rocastle - he was an Arsenal legend and died far, far, too young.

I only started this today. I have everything except for 16D and I have same letters as Roof. Doing a quick solve on here only gives 1 word which fits and ends with central heating but I still can't work out how to parse the first 4 letters apart from it has a T in it.

ps, I thought the 1st 4 letters were "T" inside a 3-letter word for the matter that might be found in an infected wound. The solution is a relatively rare word that's more often found in crosswords.