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I think it was good wordplay though, all they needed to do was make the French more precise I guess.

Picaroon (as Buccaneer) also set the Friday night / Saturday FT 16,870. It's a good one.

Agreed that 1d's French is not precise, but the particular French "that" used is very common in my crossword experience. First thing I try when wordplay includes "French that" or equivalent.

Many thanks paradigm shifter, nailed it, going for a lie down.....

Thanks, all, for your help on this very tricky one. Just one question- on 24a, then, is the first word of the solution a known anagram indicator? I've not seen it used as such. But then maybe I have the wrong type of (second word)!

Yes, and it's the same device used in 11A, which is a device you don't see often enough in my opinion, very clever.

Although I'm not sure about the hyphens in both of those clues to be honest!

I think the hyphen in 11a is good if the definition is the last four words of the clue, without the hyphen would just be the last two or three.
As you can guess by the date, i really struggled with this and was looking at a blank grid until last night, finally got LOI 26 this morning. For some reason (stupidity? encroaching senility?) I've taken to trying to finish before looking at the forum, which means I am too late to contribute to much of the craic: but I enjoy it in retrospect, I'll try and be less stubborn.

Thanks to Picaroon for struggles with smiles (a brilliant description of the fun of crossword solving, and to all here for parsing help and enjoyable chat. Glad to hear you're not suffering so much Roof, hope you can get back to the garden while the nice weather lasts.

Here's hoping we get a special next weekend!

Yeah I think the hyphen is ok in 11A but I don't like it for 24A (cf: Breakdance 2: Electric Boogaloo)