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Finished but struggled to parse a good few.
Surely 'coats' is superfluous in 16d?

Forgot - still not parsed 9d, any help welcome.

coats means outside in 16
if you take a letter out of 9 it means about gripping - think new world monkeys

Chrise
I parsed 16 as 2,4,3

if you take a letter out of 9 it means about gripping - think new world monkeys
Nice one - thank you.

Yes on 16, but the 2 and 3 "coat" the 4.

Indeed, pauly, but in the clue the order of the wordplay is 4,2,3. So coats indicates that the 4 is contained by the 2 and the 3

Yes on 16, but the 2 and 3 "coat" the 4.

Ding! Sound of penny dropping :-)

Just finished. I had a fast start, slow middle and fast end. FOI was 12 which wasn’t the most pleasant of starts! 16a, and 17 made me smile and thought 19 clever. I am particularly fond of a 7d after watching their annoying ingenuity in opening things they shouldn’t (bins, doors, fridges[!]) on a trip to Brazil several years ago. Little blighters.

I enjoyed this, but can't parse 19ac for the life of me. Any hints as to why the final letter?