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Cheers Meursault, thought it was me being deemed unhelpful. Maybe I'm at an advantage here as I really enjoy carte blanches for some strange reason, but sense others are intimidated by them. It really is just a case of getting out a sheet of paper and doodling in some scenarios, and it's amazing how things can open up. If it helps remotely I built up a lattice of entries in the NW quadrant first, then found I could replicate it in the SE.

Thanks S_Pugh. Eventually I see that the answer is Erato, 'Bacchic' indicating an anagram and 'rite' becoming bite. I think.

If anyone can confirm any of these, it would be good. For the secret police I guess Stasi, but cannot see the wordplay. Is the correction for the 6th across clue 'chirpy' ? What is the correction to 'seedy' for the two-timer clue ?

Confirmed. SP guess is also correct of old state. 'Out' the last character in arrest (6 letter word). Not chirpy, think sea maybe. Seedy isn't a misprint, it is an indicator.

Are Meursault's conjectures in #19 correct? I have all but 9 solved, but for the life of me I can't fit anything useful together.

I need to correct my post. If you consider all 8+5/5+8 rows and all 36 possible ways to do the 12-letter columns, there are exactly 4 ways to get a match. (The 8-letter words miss the 12's in all four cases).

The correct grid does have the two rows with 8,5 and 5,8 in them, so it is a entry point of sorts.

Sorry for my error.

Hi Cockie. I'm sorry, I should have added a comment sooner, to the effect that my conjecture from yesterday evening was simply that, and nothing more. Lettuce didn't work very well in that position since I would have needed a down entry of *US*, and the only down U I've so far found is in Outbreed. 'Vying' was a game changer, because I don't have any other Vs from across clues, so it is favourite to hang off the V of Attractively. In which case Pyrotechnist cannot be close by.

In the absence of forum help re positioning, perhaps we can co-operate in another way. Do you have any other answers with H, other that Pyrotechnist and Reishi, likewise do you have any other answers with V ? Also I have just one of each (across & down) with B. Do you have any others ?

Hi Cockie, if you mean the conjectures around the H - no they are not. If you have all bar 9 you are way further than I was when I started putting things together - from memory I think I had about 17 across entries solved and maybe 12 down.

As I said earlier having got all 4 of the 5 letter across entries and the 2 12 letter downs it wasn't too hard to see that they could fit together symmetrically with 2 5's to each 12. Obviously that was a bit hit and hope but it worked. That establishes which 12 goes on which side of the centre line. Then I just started tinkering in the NW quadrant and things quickly fell into place - I think my first move there was establishing which across entries could lead off the top of the 12 and enable a down connection with one of the 5 letter across entries. Hope that helps.

Meursault - those are the only two H's and are separate unches, the same can be said of B. There are three answers with a V, two of which intersect (12 & 5).

I'm not sure if I should have said that about V as that blows it open! Apologies for the inadvertent spoiler.

meursault, which Vs have you got? How about RELEVANT for the legally sufficient clue?

I can't get the misprint for the OMITTER clue. "He leaves out" = defn, "seedy two-timer ditching woman" = anagram of two-timer without W (woman).