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Thanks Brendan. I understand, but how many men's names are there? That same odd letter is still in the way. I think yours is a better analysis than mine, but there's another solution that also means united and uses up the woman part with three letters instead of one but still leaves the same "orphan" letter in the middle. No matter. Let's go with yours. Uncle ! or Fainites !

Re 1d Felice Natale is Italian for happy christmas

Thanks for the help with some parsings. I still had to look up 16 - quite a clever CAD. Good fun all round.

Now I get 1d - amazing what a bit of sleep can do!

What a brilliant crossword. Some of the surfaces are spectacular. 12ac also needs some UK GK but should be gettable.

I think 14ac is one of the longest of those types of clue I’ve ever seen! COD for that reason.

All done .Held up for ages in SW by my certainty that 16d was a criminal 'with a' and 3 letters i could not see giving a delivery drivers mode and colour of transport .

Finished but still puzzled with the parsing of 5A. Any hints?

Sorry, the penny has dropped on 5A.

5a parses as 3, 1-3. Chambers gives the 1-3 as a registered trademark

Thanks, Jono, we crossed!