Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Grid fill pretty straightforward, and final identity clear. But what about the intervening stages? There's no indication that anything other than the identity needs to be highlighted, so is there any need to struggle to understand the key stuff? Is the key the 4-digit number? If so, what does one do with it?

I have the same questions. But, a teeny hint where to find the final identity??? Please?

Google the title and the down partial quote - should take you right to the "key" number.

If the "key" is ABCD, apply it to the across clues. Letter position A in 1st clue, B in 2nd clue, etc, repeat. This will lead you to the second quote which implies how to alter the initial grid so that the identity appears in full.

Sammina - look where the unorthodox grid entries are.
KT - "implies" requires a larger leap of intellect than I'm capable of this morning. I have the second quote, but seeking 24 letters in the grid is proving tricky. In order to identify the identity (with which I was familiar) I can see that one letter needs to be changed - are others similarly altered (apart from lower-casing)?

Are the "unorthodox entries" the ones where the solution is too long for the available cells? - not that I yet have the answers to a couple of them. I have the second quotation thanks to Kilgore Trout but I have yet to understand its relevance.

Apply the key number ABCD to the initial grid to get a cryptic representation of a contradiction to the second half of the second quote, plus the quote's author (as per the preamble):

In row 1, look at letter positions A and B
In row 2, letters C and D
repeat.

Unjumble a word in this cryptic representation and the identity will now appear correctly.

Thanks for that. In my, not quite completed, grid it confirms the last five letters of the identity but not where to put the first two. I am also still puzzled by the answers that don't fit.

I'm in a similar position to sammina - I just don't know how to resolve the overlong words.

3d and 10d I've solved but can't find a way to stick 'em in that makes any sense to me. And I can't solve 16a, which doesn't help.

Elsewhere I'm doing ok. Both quotations found before coming here. If I could get the grid full I might be able to work out what to do with it!

If you are puzzled by the answers that don't fit, it seems that you can't have the "identity" which is being used in the mathematical sense here. If answers are too long, express bits of the answer in symbols rather than letters.

Ah, thanks, Kilgore trout. Something I would never have thought about. I think this is moving into areas in which I am not strong, but that's something learnt, even if I can't quite finish this one (I will try).