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Thanks Candledave. I'll have another look tomorrow, Nothing could be as confused as the Welsh line-out calls on Saturday, so I am most grateful for your attempts to asset

I’m not sure how to ask this exactly, but I’ve found six items, plus the eighth, and everything so far is very thematically tidy, but I’ve now spent a full day off and on trying to locate the seventh item to no avail. Should I be looking for something that in any way breaks any existing patterns? It honestly feels like I’ve evaluated all remaining parts of the grid and there doesn’t seem to be anything there.

Crowdedmorning, have you counted uo the letters of the items you've found? If so, you'll know you need a 5,6,whatever-letter word - and maybe just check lists of ... Oh, and if you have the eighth item, you must have a letter (or more) that contributes to the seventh - so maybe some gridstaring? My items are all relatively normal.

Ha, well I just double checked my answers in the only place that really made sense for the final item to be, and found a letter wrong due to a wordplay misinterpretation that still seemed definitionally plausible. The last item slotted right in after fixing it.

If the clue you are referring to is the one I think it is, I am convinced the wordplay does not produce the required definition.

Worth checking how many cells you have left and cross-referencing that with available space in what the grid represents. The thematic items and the containers are consistent (albeit not identical) and are all in”appropriate form” as the preamble indicates. “I hope I make myself obscure” - or at least sufficiently so to meet the rubric of the thread.

Way too late! Sorry folks!

Crowded... glad you got there, glad it's all done now.

Before I file this away can I get some help parsing ..

18d - Men flexing muscles no longer short of brawn retention? (6)

I have the answer, definition and misprint and am assuming the first three letters are "men flexing" but I just can't see how the final three relate to "muscles no longer" - Chambers has them as either an abbr. for a Book in the Bible, a rock forming mineral or a vocalists aid - no-one else has queried it so I'm obviously missing something obvious but what?

(Always assuming my posts can actually be seen on here and aren't invisible!)

Brendan, look for an obscure and archaic definition of “mouse” in the BRB.