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I'm still a bit stuck in the SW quarter. A steer on 15 down would give me some crossing letters. "Past rector stopping safe sex (8)"

The 'safe' is the one that could be cracked, the 'rector' is the usual abbreviation and the sex is the usual two-letter word. The rector goes inside the safe, the sex comes at the end...

Far too many fences on this course for it to be enjoyable - cold solving, guessing synonyms as used by one of the world's worst spellers, jigsaw, clashes. It's rare for a crossword to reduce me to tears, but this one did, through sheer frustration. I never want to see the words 'No results found' again.

Grid filled and I can see the phrase for “II to ____ ____ I” but can’t quite see how to use the same eight letters for “while III ___ ___” though I think it should be something to do with burning. Wordplay eludes me for “Perhaps brutify drink spiked with drug in club” even though I have the grid entry.

Biggus56 it sounds like you are relying on internet searches too much. Do you have a hard copy of Chambers dictionary? It will serve you much better. The relevant words aren’t produced by worlds worst speller. They were written before standardisation of English as we know it today, and in many cases are more accurate reflection of etymology than modern spelling. Please use a printed dictionary and have another go!

Graham9perkins,
The other phrase comes up in the oneacross anagram finder, but you have to reverse the 2 words.
Parsing for the 'Perhaps' clue is 'drug (1), in 'drink' (eastern European), all in 'club'.

Thanks mattrom, that phrase was a bit more vague than I expected!

I’ve just looked at the comments and queries here and have to say I loved this after kicking myself about liaise!

I have a clash where I shouldn't have one- in the third cell of 7 down, which I have as L for 7d and S for the across clue. Where have I gone wrong? Thanks

the across clue is clued as "as soon" but is entered as its archaic
equivalent "alsoon".