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Finished, but can't work out all the wordplay in these clues -

1a, 9a Forbidden city artist's a blank slate (6,4): I understand the second part of the solution but how do the first two words of the clue work?

22a, 25a Fools one politician hired, working on board (10): does "on board" indicate "S........S"? This seems a little obtuse. Or am I missing something?

26a Kind of brown-backed flower (6): can't see how the back half of the solution works

Can anyone give me a clue? Many thanks

1 first 4 letters mean "forbidden", next 2 an American city, then the "artist's a"

2 I took "on board" to mean "inside S.....S"

26 first 3 letters backwards are a variety of "brown"

...............SS is usually a ship i crosswords

Thanks!

1 - of course, should have seen that!

22/25 - I see the ship reference, but wasn't sure because the placing around the rest of the clue seemed unclearly clued

26 - sorry, I wasn't clear, it's the second half of the clue I can't parse

Thanks

Flower = a River

Thick of me. Was trying to find a plant! Much appreciated.

I still don't know what this river is(26ac). I have N?T?R? and like the other seeker I know the first part but I don't see the second half.

The Ure is a river in Yorkshire

Thanks. I hadn't picked out KIND as the definition.