Morning all,
Just taking another look at this whilst my brownies are in the oven.
FOI was 1a, not sure why I started at the start today. I think it stood out to me as such a concise clue, which are often my favourite. In fact 1a, 20d and 27a reminded me of Rufus and his use of concise dds.
Not having 24a/1d or 9a/11a is holding me back from finishing and there are a couple I can't parse. Not entirely happy with 23d's parsing either.
Nice to see some "Pauline" style clues again, and I think 22a should end in a Y Brendan as an adjective.
Will be back later for some hints if I'm still struggling. :-)