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I have got a bit leg-locked in the NE corner. Help please with 8d might put me back on track. Stand with a soldier guarding remains (5) I have A.I.E

Jogamel, stand (the definition) is a verb, the soldier is an engineer, and remains is a simple two-letter verb inside

So simple when you explain! One more bit of help please. 15d. What criminal might have left large twisted sleeve? (5) I have G.ON.

Hi, Jogamel. Your O is wrong in that one. The answer is an ordinary word, but I didn't know it could mean sleeve, cuff. I'm working on a hint for the parsing...

PS Could you use ??? for blanks, it makes things clearer? Thanks.

The toughest clue of the lot, for me. As Malone says, your O is wrong.

As for the clue, imagine what might be picked up at a crime scene by forensics “what criminal might have left”. It’s a three-letter abbrev. Add a two-letter abbrev. of “large” and reverse it all “twisted”. Whole answer is a bodily part, but also means a sleeve

Thanks, Quisling, there were too many strands (!) in that clue for me to provide a readable, sensible hint.

Very good, Malone! 😆

Thanks, Quisling. I was relieved and happy when your useful post appeared. My attempt was very mangled, I was glad to ditch it.

Thanks quisling, struggled with parsing that. I do still have one loose end - in one of the two hidden words to be changed, I'm pretty sure what it should be but that involves an instance of the same repeated original letter mapping to different 'thematic' letters, which seems a little unsatisfactory - especially in the context of such a fabulous puzzle! Hope that makes sense - but maybe I've misinterpreted somewhere...?

cb,
Hmm....I agree it's a bit unsatifactory but I'm sure the setter will have tried to incorporate a single encoding through the puzzle, to no avail I presume.