Today, feeling considerably better and with much more time to dedicate to the crossword I managed to get just one answer – 20dn, although I more or less guessed 4dn but didn’t have the courage to actually enter it into the grid.

Not my best day for crossword solving.

As indicated, the phrase at 16dn is at the cutting edge of contemporary urban slang rather as 1D are on the modern music scene, (I think). And yes, K’s D, I’m afraid I do know all their names! Slight correction to the parsing here – Row A refers to the seats in the front row.

Congratulations on the blogging anniversary.

Cheers
Rowly.

17ac: I really think the solver is being asked to do too much here for a weekday non-prize cryptic. The length of the answer and the enumeration go some way to compensating, but I would hate to see this sort of thing catch on and be used in clues for shorter answers.

18ac: I would like to see the word “special” (or something similar) inserted before “key”. The problem with allowing “key” to clue ESC is that by the same logic, “key” could clue any single letter of the alphabet.

2dn: An excellent double definition – two really different meanings of the answer.

6dn: This seems fair to me. There is a big difference in degree of difficulty between finding a synonym and making a cyclic shift (as explained by Thomas @1) and having to make a full anagram of a synonym.

8dn: I would class this as an indirect anagram, but of the benign type and a perfectly fair and good clue. If you take the view that indirect anagrams are necessarily wrong, then you need a different name for this type of device.

14dn: Eileen @5 has perfectly expressed my reaction to this clue.

flashling @4: A heptarch is one of a group of seven rulers, so the singular definition is correct.

Joyce takes full responsibility for any errors as Bert has been busy working recently and has not had time to check the blog!

I agree with practically every word of K’s D’s comment.

This was a tough work-out and easily worthy of the Prize slot – great fun, though.

I think it’s perhaps not only overseas solvers who might have problems with TOWCESTER!

In 8dn, ‘replay’ is surely needed as the anagrind? – or I may have misunderstood your comment.

I couldn’t have parsed CUTTHROAT without your help: I have no objection to that kind of clue – in fact, it’s one of my favourite types.

Many thanks, Tyrus, for a most entertaining exercise.