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24a: the famous (at least in USA, but I think he was a Brit) interviewer of the ("tricky") disgraced former president figures in the solution.

Thanks Geeker. I got that he was a tough interviewer, but couldn't remember him interviewing an American president.

roof
There was a play about it, which was made into a film in 2008. Worth watching, as I recall.

29a: If you do the Everyman puzzles, "Laa-Laa" is an example of one of Everyman's trademark clue devices (12 letters). Remove the leading 3 letters (a synonym of "every"), and you have the solution (defn. is "repeat").

Geeker
Yes, he was a Brit, and very famous in this country as well. An extraordinary career alternating dizzyingly between serious journalism, satire and light entertainment.

Thanks for all your comments- interesting reading as always. My LOI is 22a. Only two words seem to go with the crossers, but I'm not sure which answer or how the parsing works. Any hints?

22a: definition "drop price", parses as 4 ("pile") inside 3 (three-quarters of a 4-letter monetary unit).

Ahh thank you Geeker. But it means I have 22d wrong! Back to work then!

I thought 22d was rather unspecific. My guess seems to have been right, but I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't other possibles.

Thanks for all your comments, have finished with a lot of help. Sadly not on Boatman’s wavelength, finally got the theme .
FOI 7 thanks to actonhighstreet
LOI 3
COD superb 26 that was on my wavelength
One or two still to finish parsing ie 9 get the cut down tree but not the rest.