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Thanks Chrise.

I think I found this tough due to the words I didn't know, coupled with some slightly off beat clueing.

All done now. Always like a challenge but not sure still what I thought about this.

FOI 10a. LOI 16a.

COD I think would be 24a.

Hi everyone

Started even later than usual today as it is "greenhouse weekend". Got it emptied, my husband cleaned all the windows and I swept it out, but now my back hurts. Tomorrow we put up bubble wrap and put everything back in.

I started well as Like Geeker I got 1d straight away. I've heard of this barker. Followed by 8d and 10ac. Thanks for some hints from here, but now time for my second read through. I could have done with something a bit easier this week, especially after last week's beast. Have I really got 17ac right?

I'll be back asking for hints soon.

A pleasure to see Vlad again, and nice to see he's not lost his mojo.
10a was my first as well.
I was puzzled about 7d and 14a, my last two in. Couldn't get a real parse on either that worked for me.
Like Brendan, it looked like the first couple of letters in 7d that I needed to justify. Then I read geeker's post. D'oh.
Agreed the general tone about 13a and, to a lesser extent, 17a.
I still can't see what's so clever about 14a though.

I've been making very slow but steady progress, but now i think I need some help. There are a few I can't fully parse: 9ac, 4d and 27ac and some for which I require hints: I'm completely stuck on 7d and 14ac. I have ?r?P?Y ???E for 14ac and just ?I???? for 7d. Are my crossers right? And I have no ideas for 12ac or 23d. I saw some hints in the thread, but they didn't help me.

Hi Roof,

7d - 2 letter "wearing" surrounded by above 3 letter "skirt" and below single letter "one" - definition is "Adriatic resort".

12a - Single letter "twaddle at the end" then 2 letter "Truss" then 4 letter "bank" reversed/turning - definition is "more meaningless".

12 parses as 1, 2, 4 = "twaddle at the end", "Truss turning", "bank".

23 is a repeated letter inside a 3-letter recent PM.

23d - 3 letter "PM" surrounding 2 letter "rules" - definition is "join"

14: your crossers are correct. Clue is a cryptic definition. Solution is a possibly sexist colloquial expression for a "partner".

27: defn "banker", anagram of UPSET+HEARS-S

Many thanks to both Geeker and Brendan.

I was convinced that the PM in 23 down was Bonar Law, but then I remembered a more recent one. That meant I had got 27ac wrong, but was able to solve the anagram you gave me. I had managed to solve 12ac and 14ac on my own. So I've finished. But there were some funny (odd) clueing and some new words for me.

I found the whole exercise very annoying (I don't like Vlad), but at least the greenhouse is empty and if it doesn't rain too much tomorrow, we should get it all back in.

My FOI was 1d closely followed by 10ac. My LOI was 27ac and my COD was 17d