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Brilliant ,well spotted.

That was reply to witless.

All done bar two, with a little help from the forum on 6d and 8a. That just leaves 5d and 10a, neither of which seem to have been a problem for anyone else. Any gentle nudges, please?

We had a totally different answer for 14a which fitted the 3 crosers and def, but we couldn't parse it, unsurprisingly!

The thematicness is delightful.

Foi 19d
Loi 5d or 10a, if we ever solve them

Hi Pam,
5d parses 1 (the usual abbr. for duke) + 5 (jazz perhaps, as an example of a type of fruit!). Defn. spot.

10a “in the mirror” means read back to front. 3 letter bird, then two start letters from words in the clue. Defn. foam.

Thanks, Jono,

In fact, before reading this, I cracked 10a last night, went out for the day today and on my return husband proudly announced that he'd solved 5d, which I then solved too.

All done: LOI 5d (which no-one else seemed to find difficult). I think I expected it to end in "dle", for "perhaps led"! A neat little clue.

Very late to the party as I couldn’t start this last night, and this morning had the distractions of rail replacement bus services to contend with.
A tough challenge but very enjoyable, and I was pleased to have successfully parsed everything before coming here, not least the tricky but brilliant 10a, which for me pipped a number of challengers to the COD post.
Vlad maintaining his reputation for causing pleasure even as he impales.