Uuff – that took me a while! Great clues though : ) I struggled on 1A and only now got why TRACE is like 'shred' – I was thinking verbs. Thanks for a fun puzzle!
Thank you! Yeah 1A has is misleading due to shred being used as a verb in the clue but a noun in the definition. Good work getting through the difficulties!
Fun puzzle overall. In 5A "some" is on the wrong side of the fodder. In 1D, I'm not happy with "composition" as an anagram indicator, I know others are. C'est la vie.