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I found this week's puzzle a bit more tricky than usual, and won't be surprised if it causes a bit of head scratching among regular solvers.

As usual there are a few anagrams, most of which are straightforward, but there a few that require letter subtraction or are part anagram, part wordplay.

There are also a couple of clues where the wordplay leads you to an answer only for you to then have to deduct part of it to get the definition - very devious.

I'm still not 100% certain of the exact parsing for 13d, but I'll keep going and hope I get a PDM.

All in all another fun workout.

I've finally figured out 13d....

....and it has nothing to do with Royal Marines:-)

I’m not sure if cove can be taken as a branch or arm. I took old academic as aged don, so I could guess the answer easily. But not sure about the first part.

I am not sure about the name for 4d. So I put in a republican name starting with Doc. Still working on it.

I got 4d now! It is a shoe brand. All done.

Yes, I see that arm is inlet in Chambers.

Hi Mathi, that's the route i went down for 13d.

I assumed rum (or rummy) for the crippled game in 20d. Is it ok?

Hi mathi,
RU is Rugby Union, game

Oh, ok. That is better. Thanks. I was thinking bruin the bear or rum game.

I think I just got lucky this week as it all came together without too much head scratching.

Loved the 7d/8d linking, potentially apposite for anyone reaching the end of dry January 🙂