Crossword Help Forum
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2: the white wine is MOSEL
10: obscure word; def is first 7 words. Below = 3-letter Latin abbreviation
16: the big bird is an alternate spelling of a mythical one. Obscure word again.
20: fuss = SONG
23: necessary once = lavatory.

That helps a bit, buzzb. For 10 I'd guessed the long def but even if SUB is what you're hinting at I can't see the rest of it yet. Same goes for the bird - I'd had Sinbad in mind but combining that with the obvious island gets me nowhere.

At least I've found the bar. Cheers!

Saoralba, below is inf.

Thanks, unclued - it had just popped into my head a few minutes ago, along with the bird answer. Maddening. But nothing compared to the gibberish I've got in the Rings, even with three jumbled letters in each space to play with.

I’ve got ring 5 sorted but cannot make head nor tail of 1 and 3. Clue 16 still baffles me. I’m assuming it’s a 3 letter bird inside the usual Greek island, and that it starts with KO, but BRB comes up with nothing.
Did anyone else get held up with 10 by having PARDON as 9? That took me hours to get right.

Xij - try using another island. Strangely though, Kos ends up being part of the solution!

Unlike others, I found the entities in Ring 1 went in without a fuss since that sort of thing is in my wheelhouse; it is Ring 3 that is giving me a headache. I have the impostor, and I have the name of one whose claim to fame is scientific, but I would really appreciate a hint to some of the others. Am I looking for generic, or specific beneficiaries?

As ever, the moment I ask for help, it all falls into place. I enjoyed the endgame once I got there; as always, I found all that cold solving tedious. Still, it was fun overall.

I see that a good weekend has been had by all.

I usually enjoy radials, but when I got into this I was struck by how many gaps in my grid remained after solving 42 of 48 clues.

In order to solve the theme I've focused on trying to fill ring 5. But now I'm haunted by the possibility that I've somewhere muddled my ins, outs and shake-abouts, and that any such errors have had a domino effect.

So please could someone check what I have at the moment in ring 5 (clockwise from 1) : SC?AFEKONNRNS?CHE?WE??EN

The R after the two Ns should be a vowel. You might be started to see that we are not in English.