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I have just completed a full grid and now time to think about the end game. I am slightly bemused and concerned by clues 5 and 20 because I cannot parse either of them, I am reasonably confident about all the others though. I suppose it would help if I could make sense of the "n consecutive extra items" that I have!!

Gitto - for 5, I have a DD of sorts with the last word being the second definition

Not sure of parsing of 20 but I have used a cut version of a word for down as in fleece as part of it. There may be better parsings

Cleverly, re 5D - the group of 15 is itself thematic.

23 - I get the wordplay element but I'm struggling to see which part is the definition - is it an &Lit?

Hi brendan,

The definition is “really”, which Chambers gives as one of the meanings for the answer (at the second of the four words). I’d call this a subtractive anagram rather than &lit because I don’t think the whole clue defines the answer.

Brilliant, many thanks Wintonian:-)

Blimey that was hard, but an extremely satisfying endgame.

In 20 I think "cut down" means a (3-letter) word for a down (hill) with its last letter removed, put around A C(ent)

I thought 20 was merely hidden in the clue, and cut down simply meant you use part of it.

Yes, that's much better, Quisling. Hidden in plain sight!

I am confident I have the final result but I think the instructions are a bit off. The description formed by the removed items seems to be:

a) A description of the final result
b) A description of what is to be erased
c) definitions

i.e. the first part is not something to erase