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THanks, Chrisremo - that's a relief, I've gone wrong in the past when I've have attempted to 'help'!

My 31 D is pretty straightforward - and it sounds like what you had earlier. It's defined by the (original) second word in the clue. Upwards, it is 'skewered meat', without starter.

Oof, okay--so my grid is correct, I just couldn't spot the (extremely obvious in retrospect) wordplay. Slightly embarrassing, that one! Thank you again.

Thanks, Chris... it's an occupational hazard of crosswords that things look extremely obvious afterwards!

Well done for your persistence Skyblursbazza. I’m having a slightly different experience - I’ve struggled mightily with this but now have a full grid, the theme and a probable historical reference, but nothing points me unambiguously to the required title alteration. Any vague hints welcome!

Treat the title like the thematic grid entries.

Ah, thanks mathprofrockstar, for some reason I didn’t think of following through with the theme and was thinking more of an anagram based on a historical quote - clearly a red herring. Think I’ve got it now. Thanks again.

Okay, after a few more hours (oof) I have what I think is a complete grid (bar one cell) plus the amended title.

The last cell is in 9d ("Sure to be scuttled on sea, began again (4)"), which I presume is defined by a word from elsewhere. I still have at least two excess words I've not yet accounted for, in 2d and 32a. The extra word in 32d seems like a potentially good definitional match, but the extra word in 2d maps to 32d's wordplay much more tightly. Either way, though, I suspect there's some thematic material going on with 9d that I've not identified.

Any hints about any of this? Thanks as always!

(First part of 4d's wordplay is also eluding me despite the definition being very clear and a word removed.)

I had the extra word from 2d defining 15a and the one from 32a defining your 9d.

The actual clue answer to 9d is 7 letters, with the middle 3 being thematic.

For 4d it's just a reversal of a + "month"

chris,
your last post contains a lot off references to 32d; this should be 32a.

9d maps to 32a.

You can't map 2d to 32a as they both have extra words. 2d maps to
15ac.

9dn was one of the first clues I solved - before I worked out the theme:
anag. of SURE + (name of) SEA (abbrev.); last two words of clue are definition.

Wordplay of 4d:
one letter abbrev. for BEFORE + (name of) A MONTH, all reversed.