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I have managed to get most of this done including thematic cells and the necessary transposition. However I have been stumped by the last two clues for a while now and would be grateful if someone could put me out of my misery. One is the pillowcase clue (18a) alluded to in an earlier post for which I have ??ar. The other is 18d, Steer old Gort’s... for which I have ?e?f. Have I gone wrong somewhere or am I just missing two simple words for which I will doubtless kick myself? Thanks in advance.

I didn't do this puzzle, but my Bradford's shows 'bear' under 'pillowcase' - I don't know if that works with the rest of the clue (which I haven't seen!).

Bear is correct a DD.

The other is Beef- steer as in cow.

BEF (this was an army commanded by Gort) around E for Spain

Thank you both! I had been mistakenly looking for a Irish definition of men based on Gort in county Galway. All much simpler when it’s explained!

A great puzzle. Am I right in thinking that the final entry in 13 is the plaintext of A? Slightly confused by the preamble, also by the apparent need to bruteforce the entries to the unchs in 13 before a successful encoding can be done. Or does the unencoded 13 have some significance that I haven't spotted? Thanks!

Pls ignore my last post, I think I have - finally - worked it out. It seemed odd not to have A appearing in plaintext in the final grid but I see that this is the way to fill the unchs without having to bruteforce it.

... however I do think it's a shame that it means a non-word (31a) and the non-word remnant of 32a appear in the final grid. Minor grumble, though.