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Hi Supersub, a lot of money is 3/4 of cash, followed by set (up), giving castes. C gets dropped.

Unclued, I should have thought about the pious letter in a more positive way. Yes, it's good to have the advertisement ! And welcome to all the new solvers from me too. That's an impressive feat by Pattie to complete this puzzle, when so new to the Listener.

HI,
Thanks for that. Just couldn't see it!

I've completed everything but I'm not happy about 1d. CASTES, drop the C, a T needed at the top and then I have TESTAS for my entry. Is there such a word?

I had exactly the same reservations, Orson. My version of TCD gives TESTAE as the plural. But...maybe if my answer is wrong, some kind soul will correct me. In terms of how the clue works, I don't see what else the answer can be.

Similarly, I thought that 16D was a little loose. My TCD refers to a man working on a ship, not the ship itself...didn't really want to gripe about it before, since the puzzle clearly has something about it...and you know that I'm not the critical sort...

Good point Orson. I have 'TESTAS' but surely the plural of 'TESTA' is ' TESTAE'.

As usual I'm behind Meursault in posting. I see your reservation about 16D but at least it is an entry in Chambers.

Sorry Meursault I missed your point about 'GREASER' to which you were obviously referring.

Not a problem, Uncle_W. Reading the 16 clue again I see that there is a word (or two words) in there which my interpretation hasn't accounted for. 'One' or 'one for', depending upon how you read it, doesn't make sense if the definition is simply 'a ship'. So this is probably just my own misunderstanding. 'One' might be man, so 'One for a ship' might be valid for a crewman.

16 Dn
I think "Engineer" serves a double purpose
1. anagram indicator for agrees + R
2. and "one for a ship" (definition) refers back to the noun "engineer"

TCD gives ship's engineer as a definition for GREASER

I had same reservation re testas - all my references give -ae. A bit disconcerting when only places I could find plural testas were Memidex, WordHippo and Wiktionary!