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I am totally baffled by thie puzzle. After what seems like an age I have solved only 3 clues (8 &15 across and 7 down). Can someone get me going with a few hints/answers/suggestions?

Same happened to me! It's all about a certain ball game (indoors), using colours to be extracted from clashing answers! Even then the individual clues are particularly difficult. I can't say more at the moment!

Escuan, I am in your position too. I presume you mean 6ac and 15ac and 7dn, which I also have. I presume the patriot in 4dn has the first name Paul (and had a band called the Raiders) but I cannot see which letter to remove. The same goes for 1dn where I think the "support" is a tee.
I assume the answer to 1ac is the kind of informers you find at a racecourse and that the letter to be removed is "t", but that doesn't help terrifically. In fact I think the first eight letters to be removed are in the preceding clause but that's not helping much either.

Just got another one : in 9dn the letter to be removed is "y" which means you have to combine the words for "the" and "ice" in the language of the country in which Schwerin is located to make a word for seabirds. At this rate I may have the solution just before it is published.

4d is the exception: no letter to be removed.
1d: remove 1st two letters: together with the first 3 of 1a you have a "colour" ---and that's how all the coloured cells arise where letters clash (not just one letter from each, as many as necessary). Get the principle?

P.S. I don't follow what you mean about the first 8 to be removed: do you mean 1 each from the first eight clues (in which case it wouldn't be true), or do you mean the letters that clash, which I've tried to explain above? Sorry, I just have to go to bed now (it occupied me all weekend), but I'll look in again tomorrow morning.

What I meant was the letters removed from the first eight across clues spell "the first" but I may be wrong as I haven't even solved all of the first eight clues! I don't yet understand what you are saying in your previous response. Isn't the instruction to remove one letter from each clue?

I see what you mean. My idea about 1 across is wrong but I still can't parse your answer. I was spelling 1 down wrong, omitting an "s", no doubt influenced by the number in brackets. I see that the omitted letter comes from "soon", which then can be reduced to one letter in between "support" and "dies" (out). I still think life is probably too short for me to solve this one.

Yes - the 8 letters removed from the 1st 8 clues do spell out "the first"

The last two words spell out 48. 11d is a Jewish person with an extra letter. I haven't finished yet and I'm beginning to regret the time I've spent on this.