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Hi Rocky, it’s stock in the sense of ancestry, family, lineage etc.

Ah yes of course. Been mulling it over for some hours now and it didn't come to mind. Thanks Jono.

BuzzyBee
I knew that ‘we hear’ was the homophone indicator. My point was that it should have been something else to indicate an approximation. A point that has now been conclusively proved wrong by other commenters!

Thoroughly enjoyable, if a little quick and simple. All done and all parsed in two shakes of a lambs tail with the exception of parsing for 13a. Someone put me out of my misery? (I’ve scanned the thread but nobody else seems to have mentioned it, it just be just me being thick).

Hi, Paul. Not you being thick; this one was tricky. A common two letter word for party, and then a word for makeup (not what you put on your face) with first letter (leader) removed

Hi Paul

13a - 2 letter "party" + 6 letter "make-up" (in the sense of arranging a document or file) minus its first letter/'leader abandoning.

Ah yes thanks. Got the party bit but that def if make-up just hadn’t occurred to me. I was fixated on cosmetics.

*of

Thanks Paul, and you're right, there were a lot of misdirection in some of the clues.

Thanks for all the info on this forum. I had probably 6 or 7 unparsed before coming here.

Still got 20d to work out though. One of my favourite words!
I see the “question of motive” which “consumes” three letters, the first of which I can see could be the “one”, but what are the other two letters? Must be the “writing fantasy “ bit of the clue but I can’t see how .

Rather late to the party so maybe noone will see this post…