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Yep, 7/8 was great once the penny dropped. I was initially nonplussed by the positioning of 7,8 and of 20,21 which made it hard to get the crossers to break in to those corners.

I was about to ask about 23a and 14d but just got what they are doing.

I do still have problems:
20/21 : I get what he's up to and have a confident 21 but can't see a 20 that works.
No idea about 22a.

21d describes what has been done to 20d.

22a "state" is a verb

Cheers chrise, I was looking for the wrong kind of state and had the logic of 20/21 backwards. Very nice clue.

... and that 'protected' and its ilk are often tricky to see which way round they are working.

Much fun today. Loved the &lit. clues and the generally clever wordplay (much of which only became apparent after the clue was entered). But I also don’t mind the gentler prizes…

Many thanks Philistine.

Well what a pleasure an easy crossword for a change. I've not been feeling well (a bad and lingering cold), so it was good to sit down to a crossword I could solve in good time for me.

There are three I can't fully parse: 17ac, where does the back and forth come in? 4ac and inevitably 7/8d. I've looked at the hints above, but am still in the dark. I got the latter straight away, but simply cannot see the chemistry or the Roman numerals in any meaningful way.

I had to check out clay ovens to get 13d, which I took to be a simple anagram with a missing letter.

My FOI was 6ac which I thought was very clever; LOI 4ac and my CODs are 22ac, 10ac and 6ac. I suspect I would add in 7/8d if I could find the cunning parse.

Hi Roof,
17a parses 2,5 as two terms for “say”, one read backwards and one read forward.
For 7/8 think of the “five” as IV inside Fe.
4a is 4,2 the four comes before ‘flipping’ and the two are outside letters.

..I should have said the four comes after flipping in an expression of annoyance!

Thanks Jono

Now I see 7/8d - what a convoluted clue, very clever. I still don't get 4ac, but never mind.

Hi roof
"Lucrative lacking content" gives the last two letters. I'm not enamoured of the first four, but "flipping ****" is quite a common expression.