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garble, 1d is anagram of truncated third word.

Thank you! I would never have finished without you!

Struggling with this. I have full grid except for one but am not sure if the
one-letter replacements at intersections have to be one of the two which clash or whether an extraneous letter will do. I cannot fathom 9ac at all. Can anyone provide a nudge as to the def?

Aspira, yes, there are five instances (by my count) of an extraneous letter which is needed to make the intersection work.
9a is explained by Mattrom@39, the original expression would split 4,5 reducing to 3,4 with the removal of first letters. The first letter is then changed for the grid entry

In each case, one of the clashing letters at the intersection remains in place i.e. no 'third letters' are involved.

In 9a, the first two words are the definition. Not an obvious definition but it is one you'll have heard of.

Apologies, Jono is correct about the letters (don't know what I was thinking!)

thanks, both. Still can't get 9 but am working on it. Having Covid doesn't help!

just got to this today - very clever, as usual, Hamish - and, as others have said, I thought I would be finished in an hour, only for the last third to take two hours more ... there's something really perverse about filling the answer in with one letter deliberately wrong and no definition to the word you're writing - don't think I would ever get used to that ... I'm certain of the answers to 4 and 7 but, despite the hints given here, still can't really parse them. Thanks again, Hamish - a fun solve.

Newby solver here. Enjoying this one a lot, but totally flummoxed by 18a - and it looks as though it should be simples! Any hints welcomed

On air is a homophone indicator and think of deposits in a geological sense