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I'm making steady progress, but it's hard work! Just going for a lie down...

Well, I've finished (I think), but I can't honestly say it was an enjoyable experience.

Well done, Spoffy! I have solved ….none of it! I was attempting it in fits and starts and got nowhere.

It's horrible, even once you work out what's going on...actually, it becomes more horrible then. There are a couple of answers that I can't readily verify, but I've had enough...pairs of consecutive unches, three unches in 6-letter entries, five unches in 9-letter entries, indirect anagrams (well, one indirect anagram), obscure words all over the place (it took m a while to establish why 'feudal lord, unblessed' = UZER) - this is a very difficult puzzle indeed.

@Spoffy I take my hat off to you for having cracked the key - but as you now see, knowing the key does not significantly facilitate the rest of the solution.

@Malone, I stared at this puzzle for two days without solving a single answer. Even now with the answers in front of me I cannot parse some of them.

Of course it is a puzzle that requires extraordinary parsing ability, as no definitions are given - although there are a few straightforward entry points (easy for me as I have the answers!)

@Cerasus, any joy?

I called it borderline impossible - was that fair? It certainly isn't a puzzle that the internet will help you with!

So can you imagine compiling it?!!

When everyone gets fed up I'll post the answers, RSVP

Here is the answer:

https://ibb.co/ZK1jXDH

Well, I got it right, but I only identified FISHWATER, TEINHO and RIKITA from the wordplay - I couldn't validate them as places, even using the web.

36dn - "Shout 'eight', perhaps". The reference is to the answer to the clue at 8 across, "One Scot's brains are addled". This is INSHAR - I ('One') followed by an anagram of HARNS (a Scots word for 'brains'), so an indirect anagram of an obscure word. Great. Returning to 36dn, we take the answer to 8 (INSHAR) and remove the SH ('Shout' - yes, people were doing that sort of thing long before the Guardian setters started), producing INAR. We then rearrange the letters ('perhaps') to produce RAIN. What's not to like?

@Spoffy

Good grief!

Kudos to Spoffy. You have my admiration.