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Surprised to find nothing here on this. I have the whole thing, including the four 2-word phrases whose initial letters spell (anag) a message. But then I'm stuck. I have A I B E D T M B. Any ideas?

You have one letter wrong - there's only one B.

Sorry - you have TWO wrong, there's no M.

Curious. I had ME BACK, which made sense of 2 lights, and in the Preamble. BEAM ENDS has got to be right, so ME BACK isn't.

Just seen it. should have looked there earlier!

As usual I am well behind everybody else on this. Heavy hints for 40 across ( tire of changes, keeping transactions as improved substitute - 8 ) I suspect that is an anagram of tire of and two other letters and 33 down ( Press close series with support of editor, finally - 4 .) Also, which of the four redactions appears in the completed grid.? If it is either of the first two - the only two I have - I am well and truly off-track. Any help/pointers would be appreciated.

40 A is thematic. You're right about 'tire of' and two other letters. The answer is treated the same as an earlier answer - the preamble mentions symmetry, so that should help.

33 D. The first two words are the definition. You need an abbreviation/shortening of a word in the clue and add the last letter of 'editor'.


The redaction in the grid isn't one of the first two.

I am doing OK on the bottom half but top half is proving tough.

Any hint on 15a and 7d would help me to get going.
15, A few more hours every now and again won't hurt (8, three words)

7. Speaker's gross mistake to concede to lower house, perhaps (8)
It could be a low house with a dormer windows but then I cannot parse it.

Is 41a a French phrase? I am not sure how to interpret the elderly doubling up.

I have 40a but not sure how to truncate it to 4 letters. I have the three crossing letters in the grid XX?X. So the third letter could be any of the five letters in the middle of the answer.

Thanks for the help.

40- have a look at the centre of your answer!
41. It's definitely not French, just old-fashioned English.

For 41, read 'the elderly' as 'elderly the'.