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Fair point. Just frustrated that a very good idea and grid has been spoiled / made unnecessarily difficult by too many unnecessary gimmicks (in my view).

I was unable to solve without some help from here, which means my 75% unaided solve target for the year is in some jeopardy. I have two fails left to play with.

I also found it a little frustrating. I managed to parse several answers I had only when I completed the two instructions (luckily they were repeated) and found the 2 missing letters!

I think it is good to have a spectrum of difficulty and this was doable given enought time. Repeating the instructions in a different order and giving the length of one as well as its letters was a good device making it possible to identify the extra letters for unrelated clues with each solve. I had the instructions after cold solving only about 15 clues. From there it became much easier though I needed help from here spotting the theme.
Feeling slightly embarrassed that I asked for that help in the end as it was easy when spotted - but it was well past my bed time......

I quite agree with Meursault that it's poor technique to supply the extra letters in wordplay in very small segments, eg 'vacant manner' providing a redundant R and in another clue 'rugby' providing a redundant U, especially when the resulting surface reading isn't particularly good.

Regarding acceptable anagram indicators, surely the best test is to ask does the word provide the solver with a clear instruction to rearrange the letters ie alter their order. Whilst squint may be roughly synonymous with awry as an adverb, as an adjective it doesn't seem to convey the necessary disorder to pass the test.

Yes, a tough one for me too. I could not get the instructions with 37 pairs let alone 15! Needed all the help here really so thanks all. I also think it’s good to have really tough ones but agree that some of the wordplay to get the extra letters was a bit unforgiving. Was pleased to do this one eventually and even more pleased to have been to both locations 8-)

Enjoyed this very much, have only been doing the listener for a year or so and I found this very elegant and fair. Inevitably, given the constraints, there are going to be (what I’d class as) non-words. On this there were only three that would never be used in educated conversation so that looks a very good rate to me.

The theme itself is a delight, one I’d never come across and dealt with in a nice way within the grid.

The two messages being repeated seems a bit odd to me but maybe, had Ifor used just one superfluous letter, it could have made the solve very much harder. Being able to cross-reference certainly helped this n00b get over the line.

Although Hit and Run appeared daunting at first with: no clue length, no indication of where each answer went and the doubly advertised ambiguity in the preamble. The solve itself was not overly demanding. (Yes I will admit to checking in here when stuck with a problem at the beginning.) Suspect I was also lucky in having the 4s done relatively quickly and jigsawing around the K.

A very delicate and comprehensive conclusion and, IMO, the 3rd best I’ve finished (after the brilliant Shut That Door! By Bandmaster and the extraordinarily elegant Difficulty by Chalicea).

Very interesting puzzle, although i struggled with the missing letters and admit to taking some of the help offered here. Only when i added the numbers did i realise that two answer were interchangeable, concentrated on the answer lengths a bit too much i suspect. The penny finally dropped with the title only after i'd completed the puzzle.