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Good fun. I especially liked the cryptic reference in 39A.

This is way outside my area, but good old wiki gave me the 39 answer. No joy with 21/17 though. A few answers not in BRB, and not noted as such. Odd.

I concluded that 21-17 is just a rough French translation of a 1958 song he co-wrote. Happy to be proven wrong; not sure how my idea is cryptic in any way.

For 17-21 I have the same as Buddy which doesn’t feel entirely satisfactory but I don’t see an obvious alternative.

I wasn’t aware of Pabulum’s “Obit” series but note that Obit VII was in 2024 (Derek Underwood) and Obit VI in 2022 (Lester Piggott). Before that there doesn’t appear to be a searchable Spectator archive.