Result of a sleepless night (or morning)...

Here I am, up at this ungodly hour after a night of oil-burning and tea-guzzling. The windows are shut, the doors locked and the blinds drawn after a recent encounter with a thief. So I am not able to discern the usual twittering (the natural variety) activity that usually happens outside at this twilight hour. But I digress...
This time around, the puzzle might come across as a tough cryptic nut for the newly initiated. The gloves are off, people!
Enjoy... or not!

More.

At the outset, let me apologize for MIA last week. To make it up to you, here is a set that gave me great joy in making (even though, I am not too happy with the clues)! As you can see from the time of my posting, the better part of the weekend was spent on coming up with this set.
Hope you like it!
Oh, by the way, this week's puzzle does not have a theme as such.