Cryptic crossword No 1,155

Hi Snookered, your puzzle hasn't yet received any attention so I thought I'd give it a go. You opened with a good 'un in 5a and there were great ideas to like too, but also quite a lot issues, albeit some were minor. I will give my appraisal (NB I'm far from being always right!) because I think they are for the most part easily fixable if you take the points on board. If it seems overwhelming, I am sorry, but it is not meant as criticism. Just pointing out what needs correcting. SPOILERS...

Hi Snookered, thanks for the puzzle - I'm afraid this one defeated me, and I ended up revealing most and looking to your annotations to unravel the parsing. Baldur has already provided a very comprehensive analysis (though I think 22a's "must read" could actually be read as a noun in itself, maybe hyphenated?) so I won't go through individual quibbles! But, if it's not too presumptuous, a bit of advice on 'self-editing' ...