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Welcome onverra
Yes your letters are correct. I wouldn't worry about it too much - it's truly dreadful!
There were some hints earlier that it might apply to tea as well as beer.

btw it's best to include the clue, for people who don't have the paper

Thanks Chrise...I'm not giving up yet! And thanks for advising how to post.

Hello. If anyone is still on this puzzle, I have an answer for 5d related to an English king and don’t have one for 6d with letters U-/T-. It probably can only be one thing, but I’d welcome parsing help on both. Thanks!

I’m sure you’re right on both. For the king, change the Don (academic), from a Pro to a Con. For the other one, one letter for United, then what you would see at the bottom of a sheet of paper so you read on

Friday afternoon and the bottom half was completely blank until I reread this forum and found Redpete's help with 19d. I couldn't convince myself of 5d until an inspiration just before opening the forum, matching the last post. So top half completed and parsed

FoI: 14a
Cod: 6d, a brilliant little thing

But beyond (below) that, failure. Enough time spent. Our first DNF for ages, and by a mile.

Thanks to quisling - very clever in both cases. Was glad to see that other people had wrestled with this one.

Agree with pamd. Wouldn’t want this level of difficulty every week and still haven’t figured out the spoonerism.

And FINISHED! With a few more clues from a third perusal of this forum (including the 4 crossers of the Spooner: bit of a cheat but then the answer is pure American, so feel justified!).

LoI: 27

Stil can't parse 13d, though our answer fits 5 crossers and meets definition. Husband had an earlier idea starting with H which fitted but would have left 18a ending in A, which looked unlikely! Got 16d from 2 crossers and CrosswordSolver, then 18a and thence 13d.

Amazed to have finished, given that the whole lower half was empty a few hours ago. Thanks for various hints from various folk.

And in a few hours, next week's challenge: a little easier, I hope.

Now we are past the end date I can complain without spoiling. I don't like the term cack-handed because I don't think we left-handers are. Also, I am so old that I can remember a time when it was looked on as a fault. Brought up in semi-rural Lincolnshire in the 50s, my primary school teachers kept taking my pencil out of my left hand and tried to make me write with my right, That ended when my mother went down to school. I, however, was lucky. Some were constantly rapped on their knuckles and some even had their left hand tied behind their back. Today it would be called abuse and our parents would complain that we had been traumatised. Then it was the norm.

My LOI is 1a - I am pretty sure I have the thematic answer, but can't parse the last 3 letters.