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Thanks, Turast.

The short clues can sometimes be a bit of a thorn and 6d was a case in point. I had selected the final entry based on its integer mean but wasn't having much luck 'unevening' it. I don't like loose ends.

Must confess to having used Excel to generate a word’s mean and to do the evening up for me. Not faultless with double letters but did the brunt of the work!

Thanks, Jack Aubrey!!😊

I hope it's OK to let the cat out of the bag to some extent on 6d

Everyone will have realised that the identical letters in the middle are also the mean.

That results in the original letters being equidistant from that mean, so if all else fails iteratively substitute letters to replace the middle pair.

So if the final entry were, say, "foot", try fnpt/fpnt; fmqt/fqmt..... until a real word emerges

Once the P had Dd for 6 down I thought it a very straightforward clue (eventually obviously). As has been pointed out earlier, the absolutely critical word is "bits".

Still not cracked the original answer to 9 down, despite my youthful familiarity with Biggles and Jack Aubrey's best efforts to nudge me along!!

9d isn't "evened"

woodlouse - just because the middle letters are the mean doesn't necessarily mean that both change to it - it might have been only one of them

Re: 9D - parses as two letter word for possible, then the usual charged object.

Fair to say it’s not the commonest usage of the word…

Thank you for all the replies and gentle nudges, very much appreciated. Devious clues as always from Kea!

Thanks all. I was convinced that 9 down had to be evened. I should have checked the solution in the BRB, the answer to my problem was hiding in plain sight😊