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Numbskull, the trick to 17d is to trust the obvious parse (4 letter abbrev. for proper, 2 letter silver, 2 letter jacket of Elvis). The def is first two words and non-obvious. 4d is a jumble.

Thanks umanna. I was barking up the wrong tree.

Sorry for the delay Dylan. I’ve been at a 70th birthday do all day. As others have noted, I was comparing row 5 (not 20ac) with the little one at the bottom. The little one was actually the last one I decoded after going through a Wiki list of thematic items. It’s a word I know but associate more with their closest neighbours. It also happens to be an anagram of 4 letters from my username! Hope you managed to get there in the end.

Can I confirm that we leave the thematic items encrypted in the final grid? There's no instruction to decrypt, but it feels strange leaving them. Much like the puzzle a few weeks ago that required us to erase most of the entries.

Umanna, It's my understanding that the thematic words should be entered in their encrypted form. Otherwise there would be no way of knowing the correct letter order for the jumbled down clues: 1, 4, 6. 7, 10, 14 and 17.

But I'm hardly an authority as I have little knwoledge of the thematic material and am struggling to finish the endgame. Am I right in thinking that the UNencoded version of the 9-letter thematic in line 10 begins with the letter S? If it doesn't, then I have been barking up a whole host of wrong trees.

I have really struggled with this one though am now on the home straight. The code seems a bit random, but I’m going with that. I still haven’t worked out 2d and 4d, and my answer for 1a I more associate with India, so I may have that wrong. Any clues, please? Many thanks in anticipation.

Diver -

2d The whole word is an obsolete term for the nose-band of a bridle; after the removal of the extra letter you're left with a 3-letter abbreviation meaning "all seats sold" + L (the end of April).

4d The def. is "eliminating", made up of a 3-letter abbreviation for current + in + G (1st of generators). It's a jumbled entry.

I wouldn't want to offer a nudge on 1a as I'm not sufficiently confident that I'm on the right track myself and I wouldn't want to give anyone else a bad steer.

will37, you’re correct about the first letter of the thematic item in row 10.

Diver, there is a similar item from India beginning with the same letter but only 5 letters in length

Diver, there is a similar item from India beginning with the same letter but only 5 letters in length