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And thanks to Kite for an excellent puzzle. Rare case where I spotted the theme and got some help for it (felt extremely silly when I finally got 5ac). Clue of the day was 10ac for the superb &lit.

Can't get 25a at all despite very helpful parsing hints from castafiore! Any gentle tips appreciated - down to 6 clues left and 25a would surely be helpful.

Hi Judy,

25a - It has loose definition so I understand your difficulty - the answer is a specific object.

3 letter "very" then half of "thin"/evenly-dividied + 4 letter "dress" as in 'groom', 'untangle' etc. - definition is "it's fine, ( so they say now" although, to be honest, I don't really understand the purpose of the inclusion of "so they say now".

The full expression commonly has the hyphen in the wrong place, making it meaningless!

Thanks Brendan. Have last 4 letters now so ill soldier on. So like a challenge. btw has 19d anything to do with digits!? Hope i haven't given anything away!

At last phew! Thank you Brendan and Chrise

I took “so they say now” to indicate that in modern usage you would normally put the word ‘fine’ in front of this. I may be wrong.

Very probably Jono well thought out.. stuck now on 17d. 19d. And 26a! For my sins. All help welcome

17d is a word I didn't know, but it parses 3,5, with both parts fairly obvious.
19d "fingers" is on the mark!

Thanks Chrise got it and hadn't heard of it either. Now 19d and 26a to go.