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After furious thought, I've solved Brendan's clue. I agree that it gives little away.

Thank you Iratus, that should keep me in malone's good books, assumimg I was in them to start with 🤔

I wonder if I'm now ready to start entering PR and Clueless 😀

I though I posted this 5 minutes ago but it hasn't appeared so, 2nd time lucky!

Fairly quick grid fill, but it never felt too easy. Good clues.

I enjoyed the PDM for the endgame, albeit I felt that I should have got there a bit sooner.

Nicely done, Aedites!

Got a full grid, the six cells omitted by wordplay and the five answers without definition. Now onto my least favourite part of grid staring,

Thanks Iratus for #8!

This is proving to be extremely frustrating. I have a name (18 letters) but fail to see its connection to the name derived from the 6 cells omitted from the wordplay.

Gitto - it is a rather oblique connection.

Gitto, the word “curve” in the preamble associated with the name should cause the penny to drop.

Thanks both, got the connection now. Just got to find the phrase. However, that will not be today as I have moved onto the Inquisitor, which is proving to be rather difficult - but better than grid staring.

A very good crossword with clever clues and a nice end game, but once again on the easy side. We seem to have had a lot of these this year.
I hope this represents random variation rather than a change in editorial policy.
I recently acquired a book of Listener crosswords from the 90s and they seem on average harder than the current offerings. Interested to know what others think.
This is not a criticism of the puzzles or the setters.