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Ah thank you, and I'm glad I wasn't the only one :)

I had taken just the first letter of the direction, and completely missed that it was the whole word!

Chris @35
Must have missed out on those. Mine were into Dire Straits among other things.
I didn't object to a lot of the music, just the volume!

Thanks for all of the hints today and yesterday. Was looking at an empty grid for too long yesterday. Both enjoyable puzzles.....like todays bit of offal, bit of a bike and bit of a mixed grill !! Hope everyone has had a super weekend and thanks again , Tony :-)

I knocked this off a bit quicker than usual. FOI 1a. Nice variety of clues but none stood out for me as COD, LOI 16d. Hadn't heard of the press secretary (nor the band) but enjoyed the Youtube clip, thanks barryc @32.

A fun one today - good mix of difficulty for me which took a couple of sessions to complete.
FOI 5d, LOI 23d (never heard of it!)
Thanks to Everyman and the folk here.

I must be missing something here. The first part of 17D seems quite straightforward, but I don't understand "- that's some bike!"

some bike, as in "part of a bike"

Afternoon all. Completely flummoxed by 26ac. All I have is R-Y-X---. Never did do that sort of stuff. Have I gone wrong somewhere? Oh I've just notice I'm missing a Spanish Kingdom. I'll need to research that. Thanks in anticipation.

Hi Dandybandy,

26a - Your Y is wrong from 20d (answer hidden in clue).

3 letter "rock band) + 2 letter "nine" + last 3 letters from "inch nails guitarists intros" - definition is "adjusting recordings".

Thanks Brendan, (Don't you sleep? ). It didn't help that I had cadenzas for 24a being more familiar with the musical instruction (okay, strictly it should have been cadenzii). Consequently that threw me for the Spanish Kingdom . Then I also thought of Mayday as the emergency at 20d. It didn't parse but fitted as a definition. Sometimes one goes down the wrong street! Thanks again.