The Age Cryptic by RM #20,560

Hello! I've been away and neglected my blog.  I had a child with a broken wrist needing x-rays and a cast and my husband has been away with business. I've also taken to protest my husband's strict "no pets" rule and have been feeding the backyard Magpies.

My little experiment was to see if they'd like some peanuts - my friend in Perth says her maggies love peanuts so I figured why not. A tray of peanuts sat on my deck for three days.  My friends came over for a drinks and movies night, without kids, and laughed at me. "Mince! They love mince. You'll never tempt a magpie with peanuts."

The next day, after they'd gone home, the magpies arrived. A family of four that live my neighbour's gum tree. They liked the peanuts. I texted my friends and told them. The next day a magpie was trying to walk through the hole in my screen to come into the house. I took a video and shared it on Facebook (can't get it below 100mb for Blogger and I'm not tech savvy enough to figure it out) and today - today! - I hand fed two of them chicken. It's amazing! I fixed the screen, too. Thank you Youtube! (I can replace a screen on a sliding door but not compress video. My Dad would be proud)

I got through today's puzzle all right. Right side was easier than the left and the SW corner were my last clues in. I shared a few with the Cryptic Crossword Society and C.C. Learners on Facebook. I liked 1D, 19D and 26A was lovely just for the use of "shillelagh" which is a great word to say.

I won't to a full breakdown, just a pic and questions on where I'm not sure about parsing:

Clues I'm unsure of:

3D - Sparing with words, somewhat large, round bottomed and pointy headed (3)

I got this with cross letters and definition. I guess "large" = L but the rest is lost on me. I keep think of papooses.

8D - Otherwise he'll use oddly lacking middlemen (4)

With cross letters I'm going with "Otherwise" as definition and ELSE as the answer. I tried making the answer from  "hE'lL uSe" = ELS and then adding the "middlemEn" but the word "lacking" makes me think something should be removed. I'm not sure.

24D - Close to second shack (4)

Second is just an S? is that right? I had the H in place from 25A and thought it was to mean the second letter in "sHack" so I wasn't sure.

I'm posting without having the solution to hand so if there's an error, let me know. If you have better solutions, also add those to the comments - especially for 9D as I'm sure that's a bit wonky (Sports stuff works for me but not everyone) I kept thinking of "Wireworker" as an operator, those people who used to connect phone calls or phone LINES on a switchboard but sadly don't exist any more. Also at the same time I was working that clue, Jerry Lewis shared a clip of the film You're Never Too Young of him using an operator's line desk. I love him to wee bits.

I'm out tomorrow as daughter needs another round of x-rays and possible recast so my day is gone. Have a great afternoon!