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1a @roof completely agree. One of the reasons aside from my crossers being wrong that it took me a while. I will concede that in that respect Vlad was not completely fair.

Even after reading everything that has been said about 6a (which is quite a lot) I have no idea what the solution is, nor for 8d. Anyone like to give me a push on those?

6a is tough. Definition is 'police agent', ie someone turning info over to police. On the way back indicates it's a reversal of a 'catch' in archaic fishing terms I wasn't familiar with before looking it up

8d assumes you've got the answer to 14a. Something that would be asked to get a 14a, 'hard' & 'big' are common prefixes to the answer

I kept coming back to this on and off all day and finally solved 6A and 8D which were the last two I had to get. I found it really difficult but also very satisfying.

Thanks Pamd for all your parsing. I will look again in the morning to try to understand 19d.

OK, I actually thought of what I now realise is the correct solution to 6a at a very early stage, but Vlad is using an alternative spelling that I didn't know. (From what I have now read, it seems that the alternative spelling is probably due to confusion with an American word with a different meaning.) As soon as I got that, 8d was easy. All done. 👍

Issue with 6 I think is that the spelling here is a US English term and the spelling with the alternative ending a UK English one, and that their meanings, while both police related, are not the same. In my experience only the US spelling strictly fits the definition. The version with the extra letter that someone referred to appears to be more related to South America.

Not an easy ride, had to come back to it today to finish and needed all your help! Enjoyed it for most part , however I agree with those who commented on 1a (two words ) and 6a.
FOI 17a
LOI 1a
COD 3d and 10a
Despite all the help with parsing of 18d still working on it!

Of course as soon as I had posted the PDM!
Thanks again for your company and help.