Cryptic crossword No 1,608

Hi nanacat - I thought I’d have a go at this in the same timezone. Some good stuff here - I particularly enjoyed 21a, 22a, 3d, 5d, 14d among others. Other, I was left scratching my head a bit, which I’ll detail in ‘reply’ field to avoid spoilers. Switching the ‘annotated solutions’ on can help resolve such queries. So if you did fill in the ‘explanation’ field in your clue writing, you can switch it on retrospectively via ‘solution settings’. Anyway, good to see you again! Spoilers…