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Any hints as to the common phrase?

Hello Bananabean,

To coin a phrase, if you think about it long enough the penny will drop

I've thought about it for quite some time but the penny hasn't yet dropped.
I guess that there are two particular letters to take from each word because of the phrase. Am i close?

Hi, bananabean, your penny must still be up in the air. The title is relevant – think of different possible meanings for “bit”. Yes, you have to take two letters from each of the 12 extra words to spell out the common phrase and its anagram. The letters to choose from in each word are implied by the common phrase.
This was a great relief after the unclear endgame of Listener 4422 last week, though I held myself up by misidentifying one of the words that have to be removed – I’m still convinced that it’s not needed in the clue, but it messed up the endgame. If you spot the key messages in the grid, then there’s no difficulty in resolving the answers to the eight clues that differ by one letter.

Thanks, Wintonian, I eventually saw the way it might fall.

As I have finished this, I find my self staring again at last weeks, which is probably going spoil another weekend!!!!

Wintonian, would I be right in thinking that you identified an extra word in 5d? I did, and I cannot see how the word is justified by either wordplay or definition. It cannot be part of the definition since it would have to placed later in the clue for that to be the case.

nearly finished this but unsure about which letter option to use in NE as there doesn't seem to be any thematic confirmation there as with the others

Aspria - do you mean NW. The NE is along the diagonal pointing to the corner. Can anyone help with the NW word also the parsing of 34ac? Thanks.

34a is A in a Greek Island'S