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smartie - it was the way in which "outside of" was used confused me the most and longest.

Thank you for help

Wakeling - one might almost say that there were several misleading elements bordering on unfair...

Many thanks, listenup, for parsing of 13ac, which I also couldn’t get. But is the definition actually “rat out of”? Chambers gives “rat out” - “to betray the interests of” - but not, as far as I can see, “rat out of”. But then the “of” doesn’t seem to do anything in the clue, even as a joining word.

Also, Chambers gives “bar” as an archaic definition of “estop”, but the legal meaning is “to hinder or preclude”, which is current.

I am now off to undertake a thematically-related activity.

You’re right, Wintonian, on both counts. The of probably isn’t in the definition, but I couldn’t see any other purpose for it. I was just offering my best shot at how the clue works, but I freely admit it’s unsatisfactory.

I’m all done with this (bar the final copy and highlighting) and rather enjoyed it once I got going. Despite earlier suggestions that there were too many possibilities for the extra letters, it was actually this element of the puzzle that gave me my in and subsequent pdm... specifically the extra word in 38d for which I could see only one possible letter change and an obvious synonym to support my inkling.

Reading back through the thread on the highlighting of the ‘article on top’. It’s my view this should be a single letter given it’s both an ‘article’ and ‘on top’. Highlighting more than one letter would require a different instruction... I think? Can anyone corroborate?

I agree with all of that merenz.
I wasted a little time looking for something meaningful for US - perhaps the hint I was given was a bit too gnomic?

Excellent. Thanks Drxx. I’ll put the pencil away and arm myself with biro and highlighter.

Hi, merenz,

I wondered whether the extra word in 38dn, which was one of the first clues that I solved, would become an American make of car (changing the first letter), but I’m glad I waited until the PDM, which came from noticing the first couple of words of the six-word name about halfway through solving the clues, and then understanding the puzzle’s title.

Overall, an enjoyable 2 1/2 hours as compared to around 9 hours over two days for last week’s marathon.

Good point wintonian. I’d never have spotted that possibility. When asked “what kind of car do they drive?”, I generally respond with e.g. “a red one”. :-D I could do with a comprehensive list of car makes in Mrs B!