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Finally limped over the line. Crawled would be more apt. It’s a good job I don’t send these in as I can hardly see the lines, with all the rubbing out.
However, a brilliant puzzle, even down to the thematic material in the four octagons. Unbelievable. Many thanks to all for the assistance and, of course, to Sabre. Now to catch up on the housework.

Hi Buzzb, whether 60% or 90% cold-solving isn't really what I was getting at. In a multi-phase puzzle, the cold-solving adds onto the time required. In addition some solvers, myself included, prefer crosswords where the crossing entries consistently give assistance to other clues. Having said that, I usually enjoy radial puzzles, which often require a good deal of cold-solving. I didn't discuss 'fairness', that's a notion I don't spend much time thinking about.

Finally I got a bit of peace and quiet this morning, and am now beginning to contemplate letter shifts. Prior to that, if anyone could confirm a few things, that would be very helpful.
I'm still not sure that my answer for 23 is the right one, since I'm unable to explain the wordplay. I have CAECA.
My 4 unclued squares are, in sequence, R+ENEK, S+B?EF, F+?DRE and T+RAER. Are these correct so far and are they intended to represent real words ?

Hi meursault,

CAECA = CACA (heroin in the USA) around E (ecstasy).

Wiggle 7 (Narcotic..) is the only clue I haven't solved. Any heavy hints would be appreciated!

wiggle 7 ... i was just going to ask ... is it an anagram of can seen with a 3 letter narcotic giving a 5,5 very much connected to the theme??

Yes, kirky, I've got it now - SNAKE FENCE. It really helps if you're a drug user for this crossword.

Finally! Dunnit. Thanks for the pointers.

Mersault,

The letters you have for your unclued squares are the same as mine. Whether they are correct or not is another matter. I believe they are intended to be real words.

Thanks Orson, I looked everywhere for CACA, only came up with faeces (mine is an older edition of TCD, though).

Hi Lilith, many thanks for this confirmation. For both of us to have got to the same wrong point is a low probability !

Thank you, Orson, for that answer. I wondered if I was the only person who had not got that one. I had completed the puzzle without it, but it was nice to confirm that it was there, wiggling its way across the grid.

I looked at my friendly Chambers dictionary to find out what a snake fence was, and in its friendly way it told me to look elsewhere, more than 300 pages away, for worm fence. I’m not much wiser now.

Meursault and Lilith, all of those letters are correct and do spell real words and or names - each is a transformation of one of the octagons.