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If I'm honest I don't know how 22d parses. But it was late in for me so the crossers and the theme made it fairly apparent.

Roof, thanks for mentioning curry favour, I was reminded it has an interesting derivation from the older expression “curry Fauvel”, the name of a much-admired horse in a 14c French poem, “Roman de Fauvel”.

The literal sense of to curry with regards to horses etc, as used here, is still in use it seems.

Yes, to do 26a to a horse you use a currycomb.

rocky7
Synonym for class act (in a top of the bill sort of way) is 4,4.
Take the first ‘time’ and the head of research from that.
I think ‘principal’ is unnecessary in the clue, but I may be missing something.

Rocky7 and Rogissimo, I think 'principal' means 'ignore the first instance of that particular letter', as there are two of them in the original phrase.

Many thanks to Jono, rocky7, barretter and mattron for help with parsing of 22d and meaning of curry. This is what makes this forum such an interesting and friendly place—- help when needed, new knowledge —- currycomb!
It may take me hours sometimes but who cares ,thanks again, enjoy this beautiful weather while it lasts.

Apologies rogissimo I left you out from my list , thank you too.

Hi everyone, it took me ages and a glance at the forum to even get started on this, I think I only had one clue in after a couple of passes! Has been a steady solve since then and I was only left with 18d. Looking at it again this morning I still cannot see it. Could someone break it down for me? Am I missing something really obvious?

Thanks

Hi Havermonkey, definition is a place to kill , three letter word for vampire , four letter word for to go berserk (turned up.

I've got a_a_t_i_. Are my crossers right? And the A first before the three letters for vampire? Should have checked I've got my letters right!