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Brendan, 16d was the final clue I parsed.

Parses as 3, 2 where the 3 is (a reversed synonym of a word in the clue) and the 2 is (the first and last letters of a word in the clue). "Without stopping" might raise some solver eyebrows here, but I am permissive and think it's OK.

And in 16d, 3 letters in one of the words could mean "stopping", in which case "slide without stopping" is also fine.

I should really look more carefully before posting 🤔

Thanks Geeker, I wondered if that was it but then the phrase "put a lid on it" came to mind and wondered if that was the "stopping" but, as per usual, I think I'm just over complicating things.

Thanks, brendan. That's a nice subtlety in 16d.
Many such little flourishes in this grid, thanks again to Brockwell.
There's gotta be a theme, but I leave its deduction to UK savants.

Regards the Nina, I think we'll have to wait for Jono to find out who EB is, or maybe from Brockwell himself.

Found this quite difficult, being misled by many of the definitions and parsing techniques. There's one clue that I would have solved immediately had this been a Paul(ine) puzzle, but instead it ended up being my LOI.

Brendan, I have a simple parsing for the puzzling 11a but it's too hard to explain without spoiling. Don't want to give a spoiler so early in the thread.

No problem, Geeker. I get the 2x+x, but I'm happy to wait for the "y".

Plus, I'm tired and I think I need some Zzzzz.

The ref could be a 22a with 13a in the nina.

Monk had something similar last week in FT.

Pure guess, only Brockwell can confirm.

Good guess, ilippu. Perhaps specifically a (10a, 22a).

I also suspect the Brockwell trademark of every across clue relating to the theme/topic.