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Geeker, I made the exact same mistake - I think my usual weekend sleep deprivation must have set in:-)

I don't understand the need for "take off" in 21a. Isn't "breaking" the anagrind and the final "off" the subtractive indicator? Why is "take off" needed at all? The surface would be better without it.

Hi Rainman

21a - the subtractive instruction is "take off" and the final "off" is to let you know that the the letters of "lift" are also not in order, so "off" - it's a standard cryptic convention in subtractive anagrams to specify if the word to be removed is in order or not.

Brendan/Greeker, thanks for clarifying, I did wonder if that was the confusion.
In 21 one of the “off”s (it doesn’t really matter which as you can read either way) is there to indicate that the letters to be removed are not in order in the original fodder, so a secondary anagram indicator if you like.

Breaking is definitely the anagrind (Chambers agrees)
No need for the "take off";
Lift off would suffice

Ignore my post, as Brendan and Jono have explained

… just to add, though as Brendan rightly says it’s a standard convention, it’s increasingly one that is not necessarily followed, especially in the Guardian

I guess that makes sense, although I would not have been surprised if some of the more devious Prize setters would have made the final "off" do double duty.

Jono, our posts crossed, but that was my impression as well. Perhaps Everyman needs to be better behaved.

Harder than usual, took me an hour.

I can't parse 27A though. I think charge is the first word, can't see where the second word comes from, assuming I have the correct answer.

I also couldn't parse 21A until explained here (had the correct answer though). Was trying to find somewhere to put the letter C for a while of course.