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I take the first four letters of 1ac to be an alternative expletive to hell

That's how I see it yes.

Hi Chrise
I'm not doing as well as you. I was doing well but have ground to a halt in the bottom left hand corner. Since I haven't identified the theme, I haven't got 13d with all its cross references. Can I have a hint for 22ac Potentially fine to poke nameless cat? That's immature in a bird. I only have ?I????????
23d is also too cryptic for me. 0.08 cryptically? That's fine, perhaps. I've got ??O??
I look forward to a reply before Modus starts on TV.

Hi roof
22a the cat might be large and black!
23 is my favourite. What would 0.08 be as a vulgar fraction?

Think of what's fine in the cookery sense. There's a number in the answer.
The parsing is extremely cryptic. You have to do fractions!

Hi Chrise and Rossim. Modus has finished and my stollen is on its third rise, so I'm back at the crossword. Thanks for your hints. Unfortunately, the penny hasn't dropped yet. I can't think of a large black cat unless it is one belonging to a witch.
I've already tried the fraction approach, but nothing is obvious to me. Is it a baking ingredient I've just had my hands in?
The penny has just dropped with theme!!!!!

Just to let you and Chrise know, I've now got 22ac, though I think it should be two words. Just three more now.
Thanks for your help.

I didn't like this one very much. I'd nearly finished before I realised what the theme was.
13d (very loosely) did not indicate they were homophones. They were pretty awful too but maybe the stress of this time of year has taken my sense of fun away!

I think the only way of solving the fraction one is to find the answer first and work backwards!

Actually, rossim, I did the fraction one exactly the other way round!. I worked out the possibilities for 0.08, then constructed the answer.