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Well that wasn’t easy but as usual with Paul once I got started the pennies began to drop. Not my favourite compiler like Snowwhite I miss Araucaria . Haven’t completed parsing of 3,13,21 or 20d
As usual thanks to forum for hints, enjoy rest of weekend.
FOI 5d
LOI 17d
COD 18a

read 20d upwards

Thanks Chris , took a while but at last penny has dropped!

Hi Chris

Many thanks for your suggestions. I can only assume I have some crossers wrong.

For 12ac I have ??I?N and I cannot see it backwards in the clue.
I've got 14ac now, but I think I may have the wrong first word for 17d. I have thought of another, which will give me a sensible solution for 17ac.
Back to the drawing board for 16d. I don't have N asa crosser, so I'm confused. I'll have to revisit my previous comment.

I'm off to watch a Montalbano repeat now. Perhaps it will jog my brain.

This doesn't work for me. I must have it wrong. I have W?A?O? and can only find one word that fits.

Those are the correct letters Roof and that one word could be a "pike, say".

.... maybe in the middle ages 😀

Missed it completely but pleased to hear from roof Montalbano is back on. Perfect Saturday and would have been a terrific Eurovision distraction had I known.

It wasn't my favourite Montalbano. It's the one where he has an affair with the new head of forensics and ditches Livia. But there was no way I wanted to watch
Euroglitz.

Brendan, I think I have the right answer for 20d, but cannot see the parsing. I've given up on 12ac and 12d. I must have something wrong as I cannot see the hidden in 12ac. Ahhh I'm being very stupid. I've just seen it. So, I can only see one possible answer to 12d, but once again the parsing has defeated me.

I can't worry about this anymore as I must go to bed early so I can get up in time to link up with a friend for a visit to Rosemoor tomorrow.

My FOI was10ac, my LOI was 12d and my COD was 4d. It took me ages to get it, but it made me smile.

Like many of you I miss Araucaria. But generally I get Paul, but not today.

Very difficult to get started, but mostly OK once I had a few words in place. I realised quite early what the solution to the long "be patient" clue was, but it took me a huge effort and a huge amount of time to figure out why. It's what I call a "backward clue", and usually I like them, but I didn't like this one. COD for me was 20d, though mobody else, as far as I remember, has indicated any particular interest in it. I also quite liked 16d. Contrary to what others have said, I think the suffix in 16d as "in style of" is fine as a general usage, but I am not convinced that THIS PARTICULAR WORD with that suffix exists, and for me the question mark is not enough justification for such a stretch. Therefore that has to be my DOC.