Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Thanks, as ever, quisling🥴

All filled in apart from 31, which defies solution. I can see how possible wordplay produces a word, but it isn't in BRB. Ignoring that blank cell for the moment I have unwrapped the abaa... instruction to produce a 6 (or 7 if its pluralised) word + gibberish. Plod on ... Others appear close to giving up the will to live - should I venture on?

Looks like you’re very close to the finishing line.

31 - definition is money. Wordplay is most of a word for passionless and normal word for working

Thanks cd - I was obsessing with calm and reading the wordplay incorrectly.

cockie - Look at your 'gibberish' again from a different perspective

I've filled in the bottom half, but I don't understand the word play of 15d, 20d and 25d.
I spent a while wondering why the answer to one clue fitted the definition in another, and then read the rubric!

Any suggestions welcome, thanks

Sorry, this one's not for me. I've filled the grid, but I don't do numbers. Good luck the rest of you.

15d take the usual 3 letter word for 'encountered' from the top of a word for xylophones and the like.
20d alter a word in the clue to give a reversal indicator for the shortened 'short piece'.
(there isn't a 25d)

Thanks drxx, very helpful.

I meant 26d, not 25d, sorry!

Difficult to give a hint for that one, dylan - there's an obscure 5 letter word meaning 'hired' in India that reverses, with an 'e' on the end, to give an obscure word meaning 'summon up.'