well I have now been puzzling for five days over 14d and got nowhere. It seems to be three words and must have some sense of upwards and the letters I'm convinced are right are ?O? TO TA?. My Chambers is in France but without a first letter I wouldn't know where to start. I also can only make the man at the back of the canal boat fit 39, but I'm getting from this thread that must be wrong ... again no first letter. AND ... can anyone explain why the first four letters of 3a mean "old flower"? - I assume the next three letters are the bitter vetch ... Doc is also Maskarade in the Grauniad and his efforts there are skilful but not impenetrable like this ...
Prospero, Chambers tells me that the first four letters of 3A give a Spenser (hence 'old') word for the eight letter common flower (which ends with the four letters).
thanks, malone ... so are you saying 14 is T O? TOTA? and 39 is LARGE ?A? ... sorry to be getting near spoiler time but I think most potential/sensible solvers will have given up by now!
prospero...look on answerbank if you're still stuck...i think both full answers were given....i couldn't find the 3 word one in Chambers, but the 2 word one is there....
thank you, all. So I'm concluding that 14 is a phrase that means what a process of adding everything up, and 39 is a phrase which describes a firm with sizeable backing (and this may be why it's in the backing group??). If I'm wrong, I'd appreciate being put right, as I have to blog this one - and thanks, malone, for the tip on the flower.
Propsero, it sounds as if you've just about made it to the end. For 39, Chambers has ' ????[theme word} - a large ?A? or tub'. The ?A? is another word for 'tub', and features in crosswords quite often.
Jono, I think Prospero mentioned being away from his Chambers.