The Crossword Centre - Work by Raich

[Matakari]

I know this one is "extremely difficult", but I'm still curious to see how we arrive at the answers, so any help will be much appreciated!
http://www.crossword.org.uk/work.htm

ACROSS:
24:Special shop instruction involving Tyneside that coud be catching ( 8 ):S???????
DOWN:
21.Insert again - about the twentieth attempt? ( 7 ): ????ANT
22. Servants surprisingly ignoring very silky tissue ( 7) : ????NE?
23. Disgrace, terrible, no good, it's the drink! ( 7 ) :????CA?
26. Rodent, American, I drag up ( 5 ): A????
27. rarely command return of performance(it's dropped)
R????
30. Former ruler of France and Austria(4):?F?A
31. In the manner of Lavoisier's final chemical spray ( disused ) ( 4 )?L?R

[glasman]

23 Sidecar
30 Offa

[johnalex]

22d Sarsnet . . . . anag: ser(v)ants

[johnalex]

31 Alar . . . . a la (Lavoisie)r

[johnalex]

26 Aguti . . . . A(merican) tug<< I

[johnalex]

21 Replant . . . . Re (about) Plan T (20th)

[baitress]

24 - sneezing

[dr b]

27 recital, drop IT --> RECAL, an archaic (RARELY used) form of "recall"

[dr b]

24, the letters are SCOO?NE?, so I put SCOOPNET as something that is catching, but I do not get the wordplay involving Tyneside.

[johnalex]

24 dr b - Tyneside is N E England, which takes care of NE but still need to validate T (assuming SCOOP is sound)

[dr b]

Bearing in mind the instructions, the wordplay for 24 contains an extra "P" that is not entered into the grid. That still doesn't help me.

[dr b]

if "special" is SP and Tyneside is NE, that leaves COOPT: S(P)COOP(NE)T with the extraneous P. Is there any way that "shop instruction" could lead to COOPT?

[Matakari]

Many thanks to you all!

[slaney]

Scoopnet .- perhaps the wordplay is

S=special
co-op=shop
instruction = PT (Physical Training) with the P omitted around (involving)
NE=Tyneside