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24a oilcup

Thank you too, xwordfan.

Thank you Malone and Xwordfan. Considering one of the books I did for Latin "O" Level a very, very long time ago I should have got that earlier.

Alwayspuzzled, glad I helped. I find 'hinting' quite tricky at times.

Malone

I like your hints - helpful but without giving the answer

Thanks, jigjag, that's a relief!

Thanks to everyone who has provided hints to this. Despite the helpful nudges I'm frustratingly stuck on two:

20a - 'Parades starting to suffer on hard earth' (9). I have S?'RE?S.

39a - 'Wanting to have date, gets ready' (7). I have G?RD.

In each case, clues consist of a definition for the answer (number of letters in brackets) and wordplay leading to the entered form (number of letters I've shown).

I also can't parse 36d - I think the grid entry is TOD.

Any help gratefully received! Thanks.

39 A. The entry doesn't begin with G. 34 D, which gives the first letter, is an odd-looking word!

36. Yes, the entry is Tod.

All three of your clues need their answers to be 'altered thematically'. Do you know what the alteration involves, from the other thematic answers?

Thank you Malone. I did suspect that the 1st letter of 39a wasn't correct...
Yes, I know what the alteration involves and have carried this out in the other thematic answers except for 20a. I also have the two word phrase so I'm almost done...

20 A Was a new word to me. The parades are Indian. The entry seems to be (I'm not great at parsing!) a four-letter word for 'hard' (as in painful) , plus the abbreviation for Earth and finally 'starting to suffer'/ first letter. If you get that, or anywhere near it, you can play around with inserting the thematic alteration to get the parades.