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Thanks Mack.
Immediately got the last one.
The other two agree with what I was trying to do---but I haven't found the birds and composer yet.
I'll keep plugging away!

The composer has nothing to do with music.

Thanks Mack. I've got something that works for the Composer of a slip, but it is an advocate of a philosophical movement, which doesn't seem quite right.
(Found the birds after some googling!)

The first definition in Chambers matches the clue. If you can split your answer into 2 words, 6 and 1-4, you have the right answer.

Thanks again Mack. Looks like I'm there. I'm now attempting to fit things into the grid!
You've been very patient.

Nearly done.
But checking through, I realise that I haven't parsed 2D(a)
[Legal need for ...],
though I have the answer. Can anyone explain it please?

Thanks Mattrom. All sorted now, I think. And most of the grid filled too.

Having stared at this for the full week (and taking a break to solve the later ones), I have a few solutions but only two entries, and these appear to give no additional information. Is it worth persevering?
It appears to require at least 90% cold solving. Not sure I have that in me..

Although some who have posted here say they did not need to cold-solve the majority of clues, I reckon I only made much headway once I had solved about 75%. There are posts here that can help if you want to read through them all. Solving both 13a, 16a, 24a, 25a, both 5d, both 18d and entries at 1d, 5d, 13a, 20a and 23a were my main ways in. Once you have the grid filled, the end-game is easy, so that's not the reward endgames sometimes are, but in this case it can help if you are missing the odd letter in one of the circled cells.
It's certainly one of the hardest Listeners I've come across.

Thanks Mack
Having read through the posts, I am definitely in the “anti” camp. Even if it’s 75% not 90%, that really isn’t acceptable in my book.
I have no problem with hard crosswords - it’s why I exclusively do the Listener - but not when they’re made hard by simply ignoring what makes a crossword!

I’ll give it the rest of this week, seeing as the latest was straightforward, but not longer I don’t think