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Some of us are still struggling through it :) Got the left half, just the right hand columns I cannot make any headway grrr.

Although the fact that I have solved slightly more than half before coming on here shows it is easier than usual....

Laertes, 7 is a "tall larkspur whose seeds were formerly used against lice." Which would have been pretty useful to prevent typhus before chemical pesticides became prevalent. I didn't know about this plant's properties. The wordplay is an anagram of Versace included inside a word for ropes, with Y as an extra letter.

Thanks meursault. I was on the right lines for the anagram but would not recognise that word.

Finished, but I'm 5 short of the 40.
Can account for 1a + the 6 wordplay only ones.
Is SEA + ASP to be included, but that gives 41.
Steer appreciated

Asp is one

There is another 3 letter common snake hidden in grid.

One of the letters is already erased by another snake

Ta djawhufc,
I'll have a look for that

Didn’t like this, first fail of the year for me. Solved 95% of it in an hour then spent several hours fruitlessly trying to resolve the last couple of clues. Had a guess, came on here, was wrong.

Still don’t have 37d, which I don’t think is in chambers, despite the preamble saying it is (?) Also don’t understand wordplay for 27a. If someone could let me have those, would be much appreciated.

37d isn't in my edition of Chambers.
It's a word for spirit followed by the American spelling of a synonym for cut, with the final letter being the extra one in the wordplay.

27a is a word for a type of coffee with m[oney] removed, followed by I for one, o is the extra letter in wordplay.

37D - Fictional (.....) 2 letter synonym for 'soul' plus 2 letter American (hence Motown) synonym for 'cut' with last letter extra (English spelling has 'e' at the end.
27A - Mocha is a coffee less money (m) plus I. 'o' is extra leaving type of tea.

Hi,Smellyharry,

37dn is a fictional example of the thematic items - the wordplay is a two-letter word meaning “soul” plus the American spelling for a word meaning “cut”, with the last letter (an X) being the extra letter.

27ac is a five-letter word for a type of coffee (often with a chocolate flavour), less M (at the beginning) for money, plus I (at the end) for one. The first letter of this, which is O, is the extra letter. The definition is “tea”.

On the general issue, it’s common for clues to lead to proper nouns that are not in Chambers. Whether the answer to 37dn is sufficiently well-known is open to debate, but it’s given by Bradford in the list of thematic items. As the cells making up this answer are empty (though subject to a thematic treatment) at the end of the puzzle, the answer to 37dn doesn’t breach the statement in the preamble that “the final grid contains only real words”.