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Many thanks ChrisE - see it now

I agree, this is a frustrating crossword. I have made progress, now I am left with five in the NE corner. Any hints for 1ac/d, 2d, 9 or 11ac most welcome. I need a lie down!

Many thanks for your hints

I finished before I read them as I share the crossword with a friend in Sheffield at 11.30am on Sunday mornings. Together we worked out the last three and corrected some of my mistakes (4ac and 6d). But she wasn't happy with the answer for 22ac. I can now email her and explain the parsing. She does the crossword on paper and had no idea of the theme. Shame on you Guardian!

I still hated this crossword

I'm still missing 1D, 6D, 17A and 21A.

I have all the crossing letters for 1D and 17A so I'll get it myself if I look in the thesaurus long enough. Although a decent online dictionary would be better I tend to use the first one I find which sometimes miss uncommon definitions for words.

6D I have all the crossers for the first word and I have the first letter of the second word, which makes me think I may have 15A wrong (I have a thing a certain type of dog might do for that).

24A I got last night was a good clue as well I think.

9A and 11A are both part of the theme (but I had a homophone for 9A which confused me for a long time).

The parsing of 11A is pretty good though (remove an X from a 5 letter word + a 2 letter word for "does not apply")

Just missing 2 now (but did use the solver on this site to get 1D and 21A).

I have S?A?E?/E?? for 6D but thinking the first letter of 2nd word could be O instead :/

Yes, it's O

O dear ;)

I think HERD is a better fit for 15A though??? Meh

I think it's a dressmaking term.

Finished now then, but can't work out why 6D is correct.

Very difficult this was thanks for all the help guys and gals :)