Tuesday September 15Th 2020

[hopelessinit]

19d Floor covering; consume. (3) ??T If it is "EAT" I do not get the clue. Can anyone explain?

[Calibax]

Mat? Can't parse,sorry

[dannyk13]

Mat, also can't parse.

[Captain2]

A vague synonym of consume is deaden/flatten so I suppose a mat effect is a 'deadening' one?

[aelmpvw]

if that turns out to be the parse, i'd like to know the name of the crossword so i can avoid it in the future :-)

[Captain2]

@Ael :))))

I'd like hopelessinit to tell us which crossword it is when posting - I know the date!

[Lie-in King]

The Week 1226

Not enough info given, we needed to know -

"Unclued 18 across and four italicised clues all have two answers. Choose which alternatives to enter according to your personal preference in 6 down and 17 down, and write the one not selected below the clues"

The clue in the OP is one of the italicised clues.

[hopelessinit]

the crossword is The Week 1226. It is usually quite tricky but this one is out of the box!!! But thanks for input.

[aelmpvw]

thanks L-i-K, as i suspected, i'll definitely avoid 'the week' crossword . . .

[Captain2]

Thanks for the info LiK, The Week is usually a straightforward crossword I think.

Hopelessinit, you can now see the advantage of giving full information for those of us who don't take the publication.

[hopelessinit]

My humble apologies to all !!

[Kerrymar]

The italicized clues are not cryptic, just straightforward like a quick crossword. You just have to choose one of the two possible answers to fit with the other letters on the grid. Impossible to choose before the rest of the clues are solved.
As for 18 across, I just guessed once I'd solved 6 down and 17 down.