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I have been picking away at this off and on for a while. I have a full grid, a wheen of superfluous words and the 2,3,5 letter sequences. And not a clue how to proceed: without some grasp - however tenuous- following the rubric would appear to be very much a needle in a haystack job.

This is an incredible puzzle. You can get a handle on X by noting that there are 4 sets of X clues that are referenced; count the number of clues with extra words, and that should give you X.

Then write the 2, 3rd and 5th letters of each extra word and stare until your eyes glaze over, or words appear, whichever comes first. This will give you Y, and then you get to grid stare for the 4 examples of Y in the grid,

It was a pain but I thought the final grid was worth the effort.

Also, the 2, 3, 5 extra letters anagram to (6,4) which is a massive hint.

Thanks, Buddy. I have the 6,4 but as yet I am none the wiser. I am flying to Ecuador from Holland on Saturday so will have plenty of pondering time!

Thanks for bringing this to my attention, buddy. It’s not normally a puzzle on my radar (I went to the other place). The preamble was extremely convoluted, but as you say, the final grid is a thing of beauty.

We are told that x, y are integers, so they might be zero or negative. I suspect Nimrod means positive integers. We are also told that they are 'terms in a mathematical series'. Does Nimrod mean terms of a sequence, and that there is some iteration rule ? I suspect this is what is intended, and so the puzzle has something to do with most 'famous' of all sequences. But of course 2, 3, 5, 37, 28953, 1, 1, 1, 11, ... is a sequence, and 2 +3 + 5 + 37 + 28953 + .... is part of a series. This sort of laxity in definition is not encouraging.

I will, in any case, need to solve a couple more clues, but I am not particularly looking forward to the 'spot the message' element.

A very elegant solution indeed (which also helped me spot an earlier error in a misfired “solution” to 18D!). The CAM crosswords never fail to entertain and amaze for their thematic constructions.

Thanks also for just putting posts up about your progress. It encouraged me to believe it was possible!